UEFA Nations League our chance to get out?

[Mir Javad]

In other words, we basically can't do anything.

[yashar_fasihnia]

If Iran succeeds in joining UEFA, what would happen if Iran had to face Israel in a tournament? Would Iran refuse to play? I think someone said that Iran would do that if I remember correctly.

I highly doubt this is even possible. iran cant present a legitimate reason to UEFA to join them unlike Israel, turkey or kazakhstan/azerbaijan. We are not situated in Europe, we are not boycotted by other AFC countries and politically or economically or football strength wise, we are not attractive to UEFA. just simply going to UEFA and saying, "refs and AFC are against us" is not a presentable argument

[HuSsAiN]

I can't believe people actually want this to happen.. We will get beaten by European teams left right and centre, we won't have a chance of qualifying for the WC. I don't know about you guys, but it gives me great pride when we beat asian teams rather than an european team.

It won't happen. Let's stop even thinking about it

[Mir Javad]

Guys forget about these dreams about joining UEFA, its simply never going to be possible.

[Paradigm]

Guys forget about these dreams about joining UEFA, its simply never going to be possible.

That's like what my parents and close friends used to tell me every day when I was going to get out of Iran (immigrate) 25 years ago.

[caligula]

[Mir Javad]

Lets first aim about developing our football in Iran especially developing the youth and making the team one of the top in the World not just in Asia and one day qualifying beyond group stages of the World Cup, and making it to the Finals and improving our National League and making it competitive like in Europe and South America.

Forget about making a separate confederation or joining UEFA.

[Bi-honar]

If there was ever a case to be made for joining UEFA, now is the time - after this AFC decision. We're obviously not going to get unbiased decisions from the refs and Arab teams will always conspire against us - in that sense, we're more or less in the same situation Israel was. At least the case can be made as such.

We also have a common lineage and language with the Europeans, so we can make the same case as Cyprus or Armenia who are also in Asia (geographically) but play in UEFA. Other countries that are not considered transitional (like Turkey and Kazakhstan) by some conventions include Azerbaijan and Georgia.

All in all, 3 of our neighbors are in UEFA and we had European territory until a little while ago (in historical terms). So putting all those factors together, under a competent regime and federation, we would definitely have a VERY strong case to join.

All that aside, we should definitely examine the pros and cons of joining UEFA and I hope others will help with this (again ignoring the 1st 3 paragraphs and assuming that we do want to join and have a strong case to do so):

Pros

1 - We would be joining a much more organized and less corrupt confederation, less match fixing, better quality refs and more adherence to rules and laws.

2 - We will be playing much higher quality opponents both in club and international competitions and that by default should raise the level of our league and NT's - as they say, if you want to get better, you have to play better opponents.

3 - We're guaranteed decent/quality friendlies once the Nations League gets going, as many as 8 a year if I'm understanding the format correctly. On the other side of the coin, once this league gets going, very few Asian and African teams will get a chance to play friendlies with European teams. This league is basically Europe's way of increasing its dominance in world football - since the legendary Brazil of the late 50's and early 60's won the cup twice in a row, the tittle had flip flopped between S. America & Europe 10 times until 2006 and since then it has been all Europe. This whole league idea is to insure the cup does not leave Europe often, if t all!

4 - The potential distances we have to travel for club or international competitions are MUCH smaller than now. The distance from Tehran to the furthest European capital (Reykjavik, Iceland) is 45% of the distance to Sydney, 75% of the distance to Tokyo and still closer than Seoul. In other words, in the worst case and unlikely scenario that the Euro will be held in Iceland, we still have to make less of a trip than we did in 3 of the last 4 Asian Cups!

5 - Player exposure and limitations: Our players are currently getting very limited exposure in Europe and that trend will only get worse with the introduction of this league and Asia falling further behind from the rest of the world due to its shitty confederation and its policies. I'm also not 100% sure on the limitation of non-UEFA players playing for Euro teams, but perhaps someone can expand on this...


CONS

1 - Other than our self imposed limitations of having a shitty government and shitty federation and not wanting to play Israel at the moment, I can't think of anything else.

[Shahin]

not allowing women in stadiums+not willing to play Israel+no alcohol related ads=no chance in hell

[Mir Javad]

We also have a common lineage and language with the Europeans

What common lineage do Iranians have with Europeans? Iranians are a diverse people themselves. Farsi is interestingly more similar and related to languages spoken in South Asia like Hindi, Panjabi, Urdu and many others which fit under Indo-Iranian languages which also include Pashto and Kurdish than languages in Europe. Yes, most of the languages in Europe, Iran and South Asia fit under the Indo-European languages, but what is this meant to do with football and joining UEFA?

[metallica69]

We would have a better chance in joining the African football federation

[saeed_noro]

[Kiarash]

We would have a better chance in joining the African football federation

Africa is even more corrupt than AFC.

[metallica69]

Africa is even more corrupt than AFC.

But we would be the rich team in Africa

[O-ZoNe]

From another post but still worth a read here...

Guys also please get UEFA out of your heads...it just doesn't make sense for anyone involved. Look at UEFA's main sponsors, like Carlsberg and Heineken, how are they going to feel about not being able to run TV spots and ads in Iran for matches. They partly cater to males and females, in Iran females can't go to the stadium. What is UEFA to do with traveling and visiting fans, particularly female ones? Also, besides the obvious issue of Iran v. Israel (which if in Uefa will eventually happen if not at least 1 or 2 times a year) how will other countries feel about traveling to Iran...it just doesn't make sense right now for all of this to happen. We are stuck within AFC but we can certainly carve out our own niche federation like that of the proposed Central Asian one to start diminishing the role of Arab football has on us...of course on the main continental piece (Asian Cup) we will still have to compete with their nonsense.