4/17/2007
Afshin Afshar, lastkick.com
Hi fans,
As you have heard already, the Iranian Professional League is considering reducing the number of teams from the existing 18 down to 16. Mohsen Safaei-Farahani has even suggested that the number should go down to 14! The reason for all of this is that the IPL does not have the resources to support 18 professional (as defined by AFC) teams.
What are your thoughts about this? Should they go down to 16 or 14 and why?
English
فارسی
April 17th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
Interestingly, in his interview with Kaveh Mahjoub, Afshin Ghotbi commented on the subject stating the current infrastructure does not fully support the 34 weeks of competitions and he may be right. On the positive side, such a change would certainly increase the competition among the existing teams in the IPL.
The off season period will become a bit longer, which may also be easier on the clubs, while team melli would also be able to schedule more friendlies while clubs are not scheduled to play.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
16 sounds more reasonable. 14 would just make it too doll
April 17th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
I have not made up my mind on 16 v 14 yet, but I am leaning towards 14. Any team that does not have a up-to-the-standards stadium should not be there.
I also think they should put a limit on the number of teams from Tehran. Right now 6 out of 18 teams are from Tehran. That is 1/3 of the top league. Then we have states like the two Azerbaijans, and a city with a very strong football tradition like Tabriz that have none. I think spreading the teams around the country will help the game. It will create new fans and new talents will be found.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I think they should do what they did with the “Ostans” (i.e. states, proviences); split them up. We will call them Perspolis Razavi, and Perspolis Jonoobi. Split Taj, and call one of the Golestan, and the other Zanjan. This way we will have a lot more teams about 25. This means more team owners on the government dole and more hands in the cookie jar. Of course, we will need more cookies and bigger cookie jars. By the way more coaches mean, all the losers in the TM who played until they were about 62 can now have a job as head coaches. After that, they can run for Majlis. It all goes well with our national mentality of total chaos, which means we will manage somehow – Insha-allah. Meanwhile, we can point to unnamed people in unnamed teams, with unnamed accusers about anything and everything that goes right or wrong, to save face and by some face water (abe-roo). And everybody lives happily on the outsied (and sad inside) ever after.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Disastrous. The more the better, more exposure, to our so called league. Let them be involved.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
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