TEHRAN - Iranian basketball coach, Ali Arezoomandi, believes that the country's basketball needs a revolution in its structure to prevent future failures, especially at the youth and academy levels.

Iran's U16 team lost to New Zealand 72-66 on Friday and failed to book a place in the 2022 FIBA U16 Asian Championship semifinals.

The team finished in eighth place in the competition held in Doha, Qatar.

“If we just want to pay attention to the result, it will not help the progress of the country's basketball,” said Arezoomnadi in his exclusive interview with Tehran Times.

“Four years ago, Iran lost to New Zealand in the U17 and U16 competitions. At that time, we only focused on the result, and everyone talked about the failure, not the structure. The question is, in my opinion, what has changed since then to make the development of our basketball? What have we done, and what do we expect?” he added.

Arezoomandi is the former coach of the U16 team and current coach of the Kalleh Mazandaran basketball team. Last season, he led "Nazm Avaran Sirjan" to third place in the Iranian Basketball Super League jointly with Chemidor Tehran BC.

He believes that Iranian basketball needs to reform its structure to succeed in the future.

“Succeeding requires a process and is not achieved overnight. We must have a long-term plan to revolutionize the old structure since we are far from modern basketball, especially at the youth level.

“I believe that in the 2022 FIBA U16 Asian Championship, Iran had technical and managerial problems. We had three head coaches for the U16 team during the last 11 months, which negatively affected our team.

“But to blame the players and coaches for the problems of basketball at the youth level is a distraction of the real issues of the Iranian basketball,” he concluded.