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DPA - Iran is to invite the
German football federation president to Tehran, the governmental sports
daily Iran reported Sunday. The head of the Iranian Football Federation
(FFI), Ali Kafashian, will send an invitation letter to his German
counterpart, Theo Zwanziger, for a visit to Tehran to expand cooperation
between the two federations, the daily reported without giving further
details.
FFI spokesman Hassan Qafari on Sunday confirmed the Iran daily report and
told Fars news agency that Zwanziger has recently had a meeting with the
Iranian ambassador to Germany in Berlin and said he was interested in
visiting Iran.
The German national team played a friendly game against Iran in October 2004
with the aim of helping the quake-hit people of Bam in south-eastern Iran.
The game, in front of more than 100,000 enthusiastic Iranian fans in
Tehran's Azadi stadium, ended 2-0 for the German side, with goals by Fabian
Ernst and Thomas Brdaric.
Before the game, the German football federation donated 1 million euros (1.6
million dollars) for Bam which was devastated in December 2003 by a
6.3-magnitude earthquake, killing more than 30,000 and making tens of
thousands homeless.
Meanwhile the ISNA news agency reported Sunday that Iran's political
arch-foe, the US, has invited the Iranian national football team for a
ten-day training camp in Los Angeles, California.
An unnamed official of the Iranian Football Federation told ISNA that the
invitation by the LA Blues company is currently being evaluated by the
country's sports organization and if approved, Iran would leave for the US
on June 23.
The official added that Iran would play a friendly against the US national
team as well as LA Galaxy, the team of English super star David Beckham.
Iran and the US have played two games. Iran won the first at the 1998 World
Cup finals 2-1, while the two teams played to a 1-1 draw in a friendly in
the same year in Oakland.
Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations for almost three
decades but the two countries have had limited sports and cultural exchanges
during this time-period.
Washington has put Iran into the "axis of evil" and accuses the Islamic
state of sponsoring international terrorism and being after the atomic bomb,
while Tehran describes the US as "Great Satan" and an enemy of Islam and
Moslems worldwide.
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