Daei v Mayelikohan saga takes a curious turn

Mohammad Mayelikohan, a former Team Melli head coach, and one of Ali Daei’s harshest detractors was hired yesterday to coach Saipa FC. This may not bode well for Ali Daei future n Team Melli. To see how and why, one has to roll the clock back and take a look at the history of the two men.

During Ali Daei’s heydays as a Team Melli’s top striker, Mayelikohan was the head coach. The men had a fallout for reasons still unknown, and Mayelikohan drew first blood by banning Daei from the team. But the fans rallied behind Daei and forced the federation to reinstate Daei and eventually fire Mayelikohan. Since then the two men have been sworn enemies and have had many public disputes.

Before Ali Daei got the Team Melli job, he coach Saipa FC for a couple of seasons and led them to an IPL title. During that time the ever businessman Daei also invested in Saipa Corp, the auto making parent of the football club.

After taking the Team Melli job, Daei continued his relationship with Saipa FC, and had hands on involvement in running the team. He was allegedly very involved in picking his own replacement that turned out to be German coach Pierre Littbarski.

Littbarski could not maintain Saipa’s winning ways and resigned after the team was eliminated from AFC Champions League and dropped to the bottom third of the IPL table. Saipa’s Board of Directors, which included Daei, started their second search in a year for head coach.

Last week Daei left Iran for a Mecca pilgrimage and within a 48 hours the remaining members of the board finalized their agreement with Mayelikohan, whose name was not even on the list until then, was chosen.

This could mean one of two things: Either the board of Saipa did this with Daei’s approval, or they just took advantage of his absence and executed a perfect coupe de tat. Knowing Daei, it is very unlikely that he has forgiven Mayleikohan for their past differences. On the other hand pulling the rug from other a colleague is common practice in Iran. It will be interesting to see what happens when Daei returns home.