Tehran, YJC. The Head Coach Iranian national football team Carlos Quiroz says that the Palestinian Football Federation’s one-sided cancellation of a friendly match with Iran has damaged the Iranian team’s status and the Palestinian side has to compensate.
"It is a real pity and sorrowful. Their action has caused great damage to the national team trying to prepare for the Asian Nations Cup,” said Quiroz as quoted by the Iranian Football Federation.
"The only reason we got back to Tehran was to play the friendly match with Palestine and try to improve the team’s preparedness. Our initial plan was to leave for Australia today (on Friday) but we had counted on the match since the two countries’ federations had arranged since months ago for this friendly. Based on that, we left the South African camp and came back to Iran to play the game with Palestine,” he said.
The Iranian head coach reiterated that there was no reason for staying in Tehran any more; and that any minute spent in the Iranian capital would inflict a great loss on the team in the Asian Nations Cup.
Queiroz added that the cancellation was even more odd due to the fact that the initial request for the friendly match had been presented by the Palestinian Football Federation.