November 9, 2007
FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) – German football federation bosses appeared Friday to give Iranian-born midfielder Ashkan Dejagah a second chance to play for his adopted country.
The VfL Wolfsburg midfielder, born in Tehran but who grew up in Berlin, caused something of a stir last month when he refused to travel to Israel with the under-21 squad.
Dejagah refused to travel to Israel due to "family reasons", which led to him explaining his actions to federation bosses.
On Friday the federation announced they had called him up again ahead of 2009 under-21 European Championships qualifying matches agains Iceland and Luxembourg this month.
In an interview with Sport Bild magazine on Wednesday, the 21-year-old former Berlin player explained that he felt "half German, half Iranian".
Iran does no recognize the existence of Israel and forbids its citizens from travelling there.
English
فارسی
November 9th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
[...] y. The VfL Wolfsburg midfielder, born in Tehran but who grew up in … all the details here No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS [...]
November 11th, 2007 at 11:53 am
[...] e Ashkan Dejagah makes! The kid is a good player. Good enough to be in the German U-17 and he was just called to U-21. He became the center of controversy when he refused to travel to Israel. He was denou [...]