Under-23 football team to compete in 2006 Asian Games

IRNA - Iran's under-23 football team is to leave Tehran Monday to compete in the 2006 Asian Games that is to begin in the Qatari capital, Doha, on Friday, December 1.

The second round begins Tuesday, with the 24 teams split into six groups of four. The top team from each group, along with the top two second-place finishers, will advance to the quarter-finals.

Jordan and Iraq will remain in the tournament to replace Yemen and Turkmenistan, along with two other teams from the qualifying round.

Iran, which played disappointedly in the 2006 World Cup, won the Asian Games title in 1974, 1990, 1998 and 2002.

Iran's football federation put the name of 20 players on its web as follows:
Hassan Roudbarian, Alireza Haghighi, Mohsen Arzani, Hossein Mahini, Sheise Rezaei, Jalal Hosseini, Pejman Montazeri, Jalal Akbari, Saeed Chahjoei, Maziyar Zare, Mohammad Nouri, Adel Kaj-kolah, Arash Borhani, Mehrdad Uladi, Milad Nouri, Khosrow Heidari, Ismaeil Qaravi, Behshad Yavarzadeh, Ehsan Khorsandi and Mohammad Gholami.

Iran's Physical Education Organization issued a statement on Sunday night and following the efforts of the organization and Iran's Foreign Ministry the world's football governing body, FIFA, temporarily lifted Iran's suspension from international soccer on Sunday, enabling the country to defend its soccer title in the 2006 Asian Games (Doha 2006).

"Iran's under-23 football team will be allowed to take part in the 2006 Asian Games based on a formal declaration of the Iranian Football Federation over the weekend in which it has announced to FIFA that it is ready to meet all conditions set by FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) within one month," Herren said.