{"id":11139,"date":"2010-04-10T11:39:07","date_gmt":"2010-04-10T18:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/10\/ghotbi-shaken-iran-fa-tracks-eriksson-terim\/"},"modified":"2010-04-10T11:39:07","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T18:39:07","slug":"ghotbi-shaken-iran-fa-tracks-eriksson-terim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/04\/10\/ghotbi-shaken-iran-fa-tracks-eriksson-terim\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghotbi shaken; Iran FA tracks Eriksson, Terim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float: right;\" alt=\"afshin_ghotbi_20091027\" src=\"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/afshin_ghotbi_20091027.jpg\" height=\"263\" width=\"382\" \/>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN, <strong>Afshin Ghotbi, who took over the Iran national team on a promise to win  the AFC Asian Cup, now faces an uncertain future.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With the Iran FA confirming they have spoken to former Turkey coach  Fateh Terin and ex-England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson, Ghotbi insisted he  would play second fiddle to no one.<\/p>\n<p>Ghotbi has asked the Iran FA  to clarify the coaching position with nine months to go before the  kick-off in Doha, Qatar.<\/p>\n<p> \u201cAccording to the contract between  myself and the Iran FA, I am the only person authorised to make decision  on technical matters and I will never work with a foreign coach,\u201d  Ghotbi said in a letter to Iran media.<\/p>\n<p>Ghotbi, 46, took over from  Ali Daei after Team Melli were defeated by Saudi Arabia for the first  time at home in a FIFA World Cup qualifier in March, 2009. <\/p>\n<p>He  failed to salvage Iran\u2019s World Cup qualifying hopes but helped the team  reach the AFC Asian Cup 2011 Finals by beating Singapore 3-1 away and  Thailand 1-0 at Azadi Stadium.<\/p>\n<p>It was the nature of those two  victories that prompted the Iran FA to consider their coaching options,  the body\u2019s vice president Mehdi Taj said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIran\u2019s performance in  the recent AFC Asian Cup 2011 qualifiers against Singapore and Thailand  made us think we may not be able to challenge teams like South Korea,  Japan or Australia in Doha,\u201d Taj told Iran media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had  positive talks with Fateh Terim and Sven-Goran Eriksson. I believe we  should have a big-name coach for the Asian Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Terim\u2019s agent  spoke to the-afc.com last month and confirmed reports that he was  speaking to the Iran FA. <\/p>\n<p>Taj said Terim was asking for US$2.5  million while Eriksson wants US$1.6 million to join Team Melli.<\/p>\n<p>Added  Taj: \u201cIt is now or never. We have to make a decision because we are  running short of time before the Asian Cup. Paying two or three million  dollars is not a big sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AFC &#8211; TEHRAN, Afshin Ghotbi, who took over the Iran national team on a promise&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11031,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c13-team-melli-news"],"views":5705,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}