This afternoon I was privileged to talk to Mr. Ali Manoussifar who traveled to Malaysia on behalf of Esteghlal FC of Tehran. In his trip Mr. Manoussifar met with Mohammed Bin Hammam the president of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and tried to reverse the imposed ban on Esteghlal FC for falling foul of article 30 of the rules which govern the tournament after not submitting their Preliminary Player Registration forms by the February 11 deadline.

*(Article 30 F) states that: "Each club entering the competition shall send to the AFC Secretariat a squad list of no more than thirty (30) players for the competition by 11 February, 2007).

Below are the highlights of my conversation with Mr. Manoussifar who is an expert in international football.

Many thanks for your time. I heard your were commissioned through Esteghlal FC of Tehran to represent the club. Is this a permanent position that you have accepted or this was just a special assignment?

The answer is no. The Esteghlal management just requested that I represent the club in Kualalampour and try to solve the problem that is facing these days. My work with this organization is going to end after the subject is resolved once and for all by AFC.

I am aware that you just came back from Malaysia. Do you have good news for Iranian football fans or not?

I wish I did. However problems such as this need a much deeper discussion in our football and unfortunately our sports in general is deeply effected by frequent tragedies such as this one. We need to go back and fix the infrastructure of our sports. In my view; Iranian football is also suffering from extreme lack of management!

Mr. Zaribafan who is a part of executive board of Esteghlal asked me to accompany Mr. Najafnejad (Esteghlal’s CEO), to Malaysia to present our case directly with Mr. Bin Hammam.

We arrived on Wednesday and had an hour meeting with Mr. Bin Hammam and also had a conference with Paul Mony the general secretary of AFC (he replaced Peter Vellapan).

In our gathering we went from A to Z and explained the circumstances meticulously to him and talked about state of affairs that led to Esteghlal’s current situation.

Mr. Bin Hammam also expressed his sorrow over this and articulated his genuine interest in having a club like Esteghlal in this competition. We as well agreed that Esteghlal’s presence in AFC Champion’s League could be beneficial to Asian football in broad-spectrum.

At the same time he emphasized on the importance of obeying the rules and regulations of the federation. Last year two teams from Thailand and two teams from Indonesia were penalized and disqualified for the exact grounds and it was kind of close to impossible to reverse the decision on Esteghlal now!

However, Mr. Bin Hammam called for an emergency executive committee vote on Esteghlal’s problem and their judgment should go public by this coming Monday 26th the latest.

First the VIP list. Mr. Bin Hammam himself (Qatar) heads this committee of course and China, S. Arabia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, S. Korea, Thailand and Japan are other members of the executive committee.

In addition there are also other associates who have voting rights. Iraq, Indonesia, Nepal, Oman, Philippines and Uzbekistan are part of this group of countries.

In all honesty before this trip we had no chance at all. I am not saying that we are able to win the case but our chances have certainly improved. But you should also keep in mind that many of the countries that I mentioned in that list are going to benefit from Esteghlal’s absence and that is going to be a big factor here.

Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, S. Korea, Qatar and even Japan are good examples of this and are most likely not going to lean our way in this.

All the other countries go through the same easy process with ease. I did the same thing for Saba Battery last year through DHL. All you have to do to is to find a reliable source of delivery and take care of the task before the deadline. You must do it before the circumstances become problematic.

Well, all I can say at this point is thank you. I am sure that you did your best to solve the problem for the club and Iranian football fans.

Mr. Manoussifar, for those who don’t know this, you are the official agent for Andranik Teymourian. I like to congratulate you for being such attentive and educated agent. Today, Andranik owes his success to his hard work and a having a great agent such as you. He is really lucky!

You are too kind Nader jan. As you also mentioned, Andranik truly deserves a great future. He made a great sacrifice by sitting on the bench for half a year and he is the hardest workingman in this business. He is gaining experience by the minute and is liked by all in Bolton!

He refused a Million dollar deal by Al Ahli and instead stayed in a club that can catapult him to the future. He understood what was involved in becoming a great player and deserves everything that is coming to him today!

Mr. Manoussifar, many thanks for your valuable time. I look forward to talk to you again. Perhaps you can enlighten me on the world of football agents next time that we talk!