Iran soccer official resigns over New Year's greeting to Israel

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Ha'aretz

A senior official in the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) was urged to resign on Saturday after a New Year's greeting email was apparently sent on his behalf to his counterparts in Israel, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.

Mohammad-Manour Azimzadeh, the head of the FFI foreign relations' office, resigned after a mass New Year's greeting email sent by the FFI reportedly ended up with the football federation of Israel, Iran's arch-foe.

The FFI said in a statement that the emails are sent every year worldwide to all member federations of the world football governing body FIFA, "except the football federation of the Zionist regime" which has been deleted by the FFI from the mailing list.

The statement however said that a FIFA employee - apparently an Israeli of Iranian descent - had forwarded the Iranian greeting message to the Israeli federation as well.

more...

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139556.html

[vadawg]

1. rofl, apart from the guy probuably turning up dead soon, this is thee story of the year...

[ck4829]

2. Willing to bet a little "coercion" was involved in that urging

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Put aside New Years greetings. If Iran had to play Israel at THE final match

for the World Cup, would it forfeit?

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Given this reaction...

...I would say "yes."

[Tailormyst]

5. Imagine that, being fired for being polite and decnt towards others.

[bertman]

6. Small-minded assholes who cannot conceive of trying to bridge chasms. Very sad.

[hughee99]

7. Am I reading this right?

The man who's resigning sent out the "standard" email to the official mailing list, which doesn't include Israel, then, SOMEONE ELSE, someone at FIFA, not at FFI, forwarded that email on to the Israeli Football organization. And the man who sent out the original email to the approved mailing list lost his job for this.

[Boswells_Johnson]

8. "the football federation of the Zionist regime"

Wow. That sounds like a line for a bad guy in Star Trek.

[yava]

9. a welcome mistake in sports diplomacy

But I think the real reason for firing this guy (and there will be more firings), is that the IR national team has lost every major international game since the platers wore green bands 6 months ago and were reprimended.
And when teams lose, fans want heads to roll like elsewhere.
Human football tribes have similar behaviors everywhere!
Was it a Columbian defenser who was murdered when returning home after scoring (by error) against his own time abroad?