As often is the case with Iranian football the party had to be soured one way or another.  Only a few weeks after winning the league Esteghlal lost their head coach Mr Ami Ghalenoei to Iran national side ‘Team Melli’, since both Esteghlal and Team Melli are financed by the Government in Iran the authorities simply moved Esteghlal’s head coach to the national side without taking into account the impact of this move on Esteghlal or whether Ghalenoei was the right man for Team Melli (highly unprofessional by western standards).

Ghalenoei’s assistant Mr Morfavi took charge at Esteghlal but from the outset it could be seen that he lacked experience and the required knowledge to lead Esteghlal in ACL, I anticipated that Esteghlal would be knocked out of ACL at group stages once again but I never imagined that Esteghlal would not even kick a ball in this tournament, and that is precisely what has happened with Esteghlal being disqualified from ACL by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC)!

Esteghlal were due to play Pakhtakor of Uzbekistan on March 7^th, Sepahan of Isfehan will now be Iran’s sole representative in the Asian Champions League this season, Sepahan will face Al Ittihad of Syria at Foulad Shahr stadium in Isfehan on March 7^th, Sepahan’s other two opponents in Group D are Persian Gulf rivals Al Ain of UAE and Al Shabab of Saudi Arabia, Sepahan currently lie in third place in the Persian Gulf League.

So why were Esteghlal disqualified from ACL!  Would you believe that Esteghlal failed to send their list of players participating in ACL to AFC in time!  Please read on for more details on that but first I would like to add the following two paragraphs:

In the last seven months Mr Ghalenoei has repeatedly said that his heart is in Esteghlal FC despite being Team Melli head coach, Ghalenoei has continued to be heavily involved with Esteghlal attending their practice sessions, providing technical assistance and indeed plays a managing director role in the club whilst officially he is Team Melli head coach.  Even the most professional, capable and competent football man in the world would find it hard to play the dual role Ghalenoei is trying to play in Esteghlal and Team Melli simultaneously.  However, Ghalenoei is neither professional nor competent as Team Melli’s performances have proven, so is it any wonder that both Team Melli and Esteghlal FC are in the mess they are today!  Team Melli and Esteghlal have one thing in common; Ghalenoei calls the shots in both teams and has mismanaged both sides in the last seven months.

Mr Ghalenoei responded to AFC’s disqualification of Esteghlal by saying Esteghlal had posted their list players to AFC before the deadline of February 11^th and that they had a post office receipt!  The receipt is irrelevant; the letter was never received by AFC before the deadline.  One also wonders why such an important statement should have been posted to AFC in this day and age, did anyone think of using simple technology such as FAX or E-mail to send players list to AFC?  Did Mr Ghaleneoie contact AFC to ensure they had received the letter containing Esteghlal’s list of players?  Ghalenoei has claimed that a giant Asian club such as Esteghlal cannot be disqualified from ACL in this manner and that he would be looking to sort the issue out with AFC, Ghalenoei is wrong, I have the following feedback for Mr Ghalenoei: