TEHRAN - Sadegh Dorudgar, former head of Marketing Committee of the Football Federation, believes that despite some amendments in the federation’s statutes, the general format of the presidential election has remained the same as before.

Shahabeddin Azizi Khadem has been voted President of the Football Federation Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) after the governing body held its long-awaited election on Sunday Feb.28.

The presidential election was delayed several times after FIFA demanded changes to the FFIRI’s statutes, due to the government interference.

In November 2020, the new statutes were approved and the dispute with FIFA was solved after removing the Iranian Sports Minister as an assembly member.

However, Dorudgar thinks that in the new statutes, the provincial football associations still play a key role in the FFIRI’s assembly and the presidential election.

“What we saw in the elections was that still and again the unity of the provincial associations which played the major role in electing the new president of the federation and the members of the FFIRI board of directors. Despite the increase in the number of assembly members, the vote of provincial associations has the main impact on the results of the elections. We must respect the assembly’s decision and I hope that Iranian football will see better days in the future,” Dorudgar said in an exclusive interview with Tehran Times.

Sadegh Dorudgar was the Head of the Marketing Committee of the Football Federation in recent years. He resigned from his post just after the results of the FFIRI’s elections were announced.

“Due to the economic plans that have been presented by the FFIRI’s new president, I concluded that I’m not able to implement these plans as the head of the marketing committee so I decided to resign,” he explained.

When asked about the results of the elections and about the new-elected president, Dorudgar said:

“Honestly speaking, Mr. Azizi Khadem was not my choice in the elections and I preferred another candidate to be chosen, namely Kiumars Hashemi. I also believe that Ali Karimi didn’t enter the elections in the best way possible as he didn’t follow the standard processes needed for the federation elections. Generally, I think Azizi Khadem was the supported candidate by the Ministry of Sports, and contrary to rumors, Hashemi was not,” Dorudgar added.