Iran squander Sweden’s friendly match offer

PFDC – TEHRAN, Despite Iranian football federation (IFF) deputy Mehdi Taj recently claiming a friendly with Sweden in January would be on the cards, Taj himself actually declined the offer already in early December 2011.

Sweden will hold a training camp in Qatar from January 15 to January 25 with a team consisting of Swedish league players as well as legionnaires from other Scandinavian countries and were looking for two strong opponents for friendly matches during their stay.

While Qatar were chosen as one of the two teams, the agency organizing Sweden’s camp contacted Taj in early December, offering to cover all costs if Iran would be willing to travel to Doha for an official FIFA A match in January.

Taj, however, quickly declined the offer, reportedly rather pursuing a friendly match with the Ivory Coast  – in cooperation with a different agency which had already organized the friendly matches against Brazil and Russia in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

An additional letter from the Swedish football federation (SvFF) to the IFF in an attempt to once more promote the game even remained unanswered, so Sweden turned to Bahrain which immediately stepped in for Iran.

In the meantime, however, the Ivory Coast – preparing for the Africa Cup of Nations starting on January 21 – agreed to friendly matches against Tunisia (Dubai, January 9) and Lebanon (Beirut, January 17) and probably won’t be available for further test matches.

Surprisingly, Taj told reporters on Friday that the “Sweden Football Association is interested in playing with Iran as well as one African team”, despite certainly knowing the opportunity to play Sweden has already vanished.

Iran, who already qualified for the fourth and final stage of Asian World Cup qualifiers, will take on Qatar in the final group match of the third stage in Tehran on February 29, looking to defend the first spot of the group against the second placed Persian Gulf country.