Lose and you’re gone, literally!

Now admittedly I’m not particularly knowledgeable in all the facets of the “beautiful game”, but considering that only 32 teams get to participate in the World Cup, just getting into the first round might count for something back home you would think.

For instance Canada is ranked at 83rd place with FIFA ,which makes us a power house compared to the likes of American Samoa, Guam and the Turks and Caicos who hold down the last three spots at 203, 204 and 205. We’ve been to but one World Cup twenty years ago in 1986 and ever since have been participants only via the television.

So if you’re say Iran, you would think that making your third appearance at the fabled tourney would be a pretty impressive thing. There are 173 other countries that would, die, kill, er love to trade places with them.

But apparently not for those that count the most, for the folks that pay the bills and issue the fatwa’s it’s a case of what have you done for us lately! The sweat had not even been washed off the players backs following their final match a 1-1 tie with Angola, when the Iranian Physical Education Organization announced that the head of Iran’s Football Federation Mohammad Dadkan had been relieved of his duties, this a result of Iran’s 2 losses and a tie in the first round of the 2006 World Cup.

The announcement read “Reviewing the poor performance, the head of the football association was dismissed with an overwhelming majority of the votes.”

Of course this being Iran, perhaps he’s fortunate just to have lost his job, the mercurial leader of the nation President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is apparently quite the football fan when he’s not busy revising history or collecting the parts for nuclear weapons, could have probably thought up something much, much worse for the departing and losing soccer bureaucrat.

Things unraveled so much for the Iranians in this tournament that their coach Branko Ivankovic, had already announced that he would not coach the team past his contract conclusion date of July. Perhaps realizing that Iran might not be the wisest place on earth right now to set down some roots and start up a program, (well a football program anyways.) Ivankovic is off to pursue football glory in some other locale.

It might be wise for Branko not to bother returning to Tehran to clean out the office, maybe send someone a few rials and have someone forward his belongings to a neutral third party.