🔻These days, the Iranian football transfer market is heating up with staggering numbers and figures. Talks are of contracts worth between 150 and 200 billion tomans, and the figures themselves are so mind-boggling they leave fans’ wits scattered.

🔹But just in the days when billions are being exchanged in checks, recent sidelines and clashes inside Persepolis Football Club have unveiled another painful reality—among Mohsen Khalili, the team manager, and former players such as Mortaza Fannoni-Zadeh and Behrouz Saltani.

🔹Fannoni-Zadeh’s bitter interview with ISNA, and his comments about the cutting of developmental-team (talent scouting) payments for legends such as Mojtaba Morhimi—and his need to obtain a 200-million-toman loan—showed what kind of bad circumstances former stars are living through today; to the point where, according to him, if the support of the former players themselves had not been there, last year the body of the late Shefqatian would have remained on the ground.

🔹These clashes and the stark reality are only part of the vicious cycle of our football. Those who once, without any financial expectations and in days of hardship, would bring passion and pride to the stands, today—amid Iran’s difficult economic conditions—are facing problems even with small loans or their basic livelihoods.

🔹Read more details of this report on the website