Support for Team Melli Coach

To:  Football lovers everywhere

To all loyal and true supporters of Team Melli (Iranian National Soccer Team)

Dear Supporter,

We the undersigned are supporters of Iranian National football Team. We have followed and continue to follow our team giving full support without reservation to its players and officials.

We have continuously supported and encouraged our players, coaching staff, administrative and other support staff and we continue to do so.

In recent years, our beloved National Team has gone through various phases in its development cycle and has had modest success on international level.

Although our beloved National football Team has at times achieved great success (such as Champions of Asia on 3 consecutive occasions, and our presence in 2 world cup finals competitions) and Gold in Busan, along with being undefeated in open play in Asian Nations Cup 2004, where we were subjected to a most overtly planned and disgraceful biased ruling and double standards, having had to tolerate and accept such abuse, we as a team and its supporters managed to achieve what no other nation could under these circumstances. Most of which could have been avoided by a more competent IFF.

We are convinced that there exists serious mismanagement by the Iranian Football Federation (IFF), that the good of the team has usually taken a back seat to the underlying politics of football and its petty politicians.

As long suffering and loyal supporters, we have seen our beloved National Soccer Team dragged through some unbelievable situations that would cause any decent individual to hang their head in shame.

Yet, the individuals connected directly to the team have diligently and in a most dignified way stuck to their job of improving and progressing the team towards our goal of being one of Asia’s representatives in the World Cup Finals competition to be held in Germany in 2006. None more so than our current coach Mr Branco Ivankovich.

Branco, as he is affectionately known, has been the most successful National Soccer Team coach in Iran’s recent history. He took the reigns when the National Side had been eliminated from the previous World Cup and we were heading towards football wilderness. Although Branco is not an Iranian, he has worked harder and with greater commitment towards our goals than most other individuals within IFF. He has had to deal with IFF mismanagement, poor resources and inflated egos of people whose main aim is their personal interest rather than the collective good of Team Melli.

The above is not to say that Branco has not made mistakes. Every good coach experiments and changes players and formations until a suitable blend is achieved that would result in the best results on the pitch.

Branco has been a master at such tactics and has showed his guile at achieving results even under the most extreme hostile conditions, such as we witnessed in Asian Nations Cup in China.

Branco has been our most successful coach and we now feel there is a conspiracy to relieve him of his post as the head coach of TM.

With above in mind, we urge you to sign this petition to show our support for him and to urge IFF and other concerned authorities that it is in the best interest of Iran for Branco to have his contract extended and all facilities made available to him to pursue his duties successfully.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

The Support for Team Melli Coach Petition to Football lovers everywhere was created by and written by Fred Farrow (fredfarrow@tiscali.co.uk).  This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no endorsement of this petition, express or implied, by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. For technical support please use our simple Petition Help form.

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