FFIRI newly amended statutes approved

Tehran Times – TEHRAN, The General Assembly of the Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) approved the federation’s newly amended statutes on Saturday.

This was the first-ever virtual FFIRI’s General Assembly, which was held as a webinar due to the pandemic coronavirus’s continuous outbreak.

It was the first assembly after nearly two years and the revision of the statutes, the annual reports, and the financial reports were approved in the assembly. Besides, the date for the FFIRI’s elections was determined.

The Iranian Football Federation General Assembly was postponed due to FIFA’s objections over the FFIRI statutes.

FFIRI was involved in a long process with the world governing body over alleged government interference.

FIFA demanded changes to the FFIRI statutes more than a year ago and rejected amended documents submitted on several occasions. Finally, it was in the last month that FIFA approved the football federation’s statutes.

Consequently, the statute had to be approved by the General Assembly of the FFIRI to be finalized.

At the virtual session on Saturday, the new statutes were approved unanimously as 70 out of 75 members of the assembly voted in favor of the new regulations. The number of members present at the meeting was 73.

Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, the FFIRI’s general secretary, officially started the session, saying: “We sent all the documents related to the statutes to the members of the assembly, and they expressed their views about the amendments.”

Then it was Heydar Baharvand, the acting president of the FFIRI, who appreciated the support from the Ministry of Sport and Youth.

“Fortunately, in the process of the amendment of the statutes, which was a complicated task, we had the support of the members of the general assembly as well as the Ministry of Sports, especially Mr. Soltanifar, the Sports Minister,” Baharvand said.

“The minister of Sports personally helped to solve the problem of the statutes. By removing the Sports Minister from the assembly members, the main problem was solved with FIFA,” he added.

The removal of Soltanifar’s role in internal FFIRI affairs was one of eight issues FIFA called on the governing body to address

According to the FFIRI’s Secretary General, in today’s assembly, the presidential elections of this federation will be held within 70 days and probably in 2021 mid-February.