According to Tasnim news agency and quoted from the official website of the Football Federation; Mehdi Taj, the president of the Football Federation, said: Standardization of football is one of the most important goals of the Asian Football Confederation and FIFA, and for this reason, the discussion of club licenses has started in FIFA two decades ago, and this issue has officially started in Asia since 2010.
He continued: “Iranian football was also a leader in this issue from the very beginning, but unfortunately, as the standards became stricter, our football became further away from these standards.” For example, one of the criteria for a club license is the financial criteria that clubs must be able to afford. In a report published by the Asian Football Confederation, due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus, the income of Asian clubs in 2020 has decreased by about 20% compared to 2019, and as a result, Asian clubs have also reduced their expenses by 30%, but only In Iran and another country, the salary costs of players in 2020 have increased by more than 50% compared to 2019, and this is not a standard issue. Unfortunately, this issue has caused Iranian football to have a large number of cases in the CAS court. Our experience has shown that whenever the Football Federation has implemented strict requirements, the clubs have adapted themselves to these requirements and this has led to the growth of football. For example, in the discussion of stadiums, strict requirements made a new stadium to be built and several stadiums to be renovated so that they can host their team.
The head of the football federation said: “Unfortunately, we have not done well in the club license department in the past and we had taken the approach of tolerance and tolerance, and this caused us to be far behind Asian football in this department.” Iran’s national football team is currently at the top of Asian football in terms of technicality and results in the world rankings, but when we see our performance in the club license, we have not had a defensible performance. Last year, only two teams were able to receive a license from the Asian Football Confederation to participate in the Asian Champions League, while 54 teams from Japan, 18 teams from Korea, 12 teams from the United Arab Emirates, and 12 teams from Uzbekistan received club licenses. received the AFC and this shows the distance of our clubs from the standards of clubs in Asia. Perhaps, based on this, it is necessary to revise even the number of Premier League and League One teams. When a club cannot have the basic and essential standards of football, why does it insist on participating in the highest level of Iranian and Asian football?
Mehdi Taj continued: “Fortunately, good things are happening recently in the licensing department of the Football Federation.” The first goal of this committee was to lift the suspension, which fortunately will happen in the near future with the continuous activities of Mr. Zarei and his colleagues. The next step of the committee is to start the license cycle for Premier League and League One football teams, and with this seminar, this path has also started very strongly. In this meeting, the club license officer and financial managers of all Premier League teams are present. The representatives of ten league clubs are also present in this meeting, which shows that the work has started well. Fortunately, I saw that representatives of women’s football and futsal are also present in this meeting. Despite the fact that obtaining a license for futsal and women’s football is not mandatory for next year, we should start strong and move forward gradually since it is optional. The Football Federation considers the participation of all Premier League and League One clubs in the licensing process and obtaining the relevant license for the next season mandatory, and if a club does not perform well in this regard, it will definitely be dealt with according to the disciplinary offenses of the club licensing regulations, and even removed from the league. It is seen in this regulation.
In the end, he said: The Football Federation is a pillar of the licensing of the Football Federation, one of the completely independent pillars of the Federation, and even I, as the head of the Federation, will not interfere or make any recommendations regarding the decisions of this pillar, and I have asked the members of this pillar to take decisions seriously and based on the standards. take