Wilmots Salehi

Tehran Times - Negotiating a foreign head coach’s contract is far from simple, especially in the Iranian football, and, not only in Iran but generally in modern football, clubs and football federations have to consider many financial and legal issues when concluding a contract with a foreigner.

However, there is no excuse for people who signed the foreign players and coaches. Some of the coaches are earning far too much, and some others take advantage of the mistakes in their contracts.

Wilmots filed a complaint against the FFIRI to FIFA for non-payment during his time as head coach.

The directors of the Iranian football federation had a lot of hopes to win the lawsuit, but the verdict of the FIFA Players’ Status Committee was against the Iranians so that the FFIRI was sentenced to pay 6,500,000 euros to Wilmots.

The Belgian coach was appointed in May 2019 with a three-year contract to lead Iran in their quest for a sixth FIFA World Cup appearance, but left his position as just after six matches in charge due to what he called ‘serious contractual violations by the Iranian Football Federation’.

The case has caused astonishment and anger among the Iranian authorities and football fans. They have voiced their anger not only over the manner of selecting and concluding the contract with Marc Wilmots, who was paid much more than his market value, but also over the manner of ending the contract with him.

The Iranian football federation firstly denied the issue of the failure in the Wimots’s case, but finally admitted that they had received the verdict from FIFA.

The top officials of the football federation, including those who involved in the deal with Wilmots, sought to distance themselves from the contract scandal and management disgrace.

Members of the FFIRI’s board of directors, who all have signed Marc Wilmots’ contract, are also responsible for such a scandal and must pay for their costly mistake.

It seems that in response to the public outrage, shown at media as well as social networks, the board of directors’ members of the football federation should resign from their position in Iranian football as soon as possible.

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