According to Khabar Online's sport correspondent, 13 renowned soccer coaches who managed their teams in the tumultuous situations of the World Cup 2010 can justifiably protest to their national soccer federations since they make much less than Iranian national coach who neither could take the team to the World Cup nor has gained a success in recent months.
A comparison between their earnings will clarify the issue: Oscar Tabarez, the successful coach of Uruguay who reached the World Cup semi-finals with his blue shirt team after victory over Ghana, receives 300,000 US dollars annually from Uruguay's Football Federation, while Qotbi pockets 800,000 dollars a year. Tabarez's achievement gained after many years of frustration for Uruguay in the earlier rounds of the world cops.
But former French coach, Raymond Domenech stands at the top of the list. Although his team performed so miserably in its group lately, but earlier in the World Cup 2006 under his management France reached to the final and only lost to Italy in a penalty shootout following a 1-1 draw after extra time. With such reputation, France Football Federation has annually paid Domenech 720,000 as salary, meaning that he has made 80,000 less than Iran's national soccer coach.
Even Radomir Antić, the eminent head coach of Serbia's national soccer team, the only individual who has managed two Spanish giant clubs, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid is put far behind Afshin Qotbi in terms of earning. He makes 378,000 a year which is exactly 422,000 lower than his Iranian counterpart!
A UCLA graduate, Qotbi worked for South Korea national football team under Dutchman Guus Hiddink in 2002-2004 as a football analyst. He was also the assistant of other reputed Dutch coaches including Dick Advocaat and Pim Verbeek until 2007.
In 2007 he became the head coach of Persepolis F.C., one of the two most favored Iranian clubs only rivaled Esteghlal F.C. and could led Persepolis to Iranian Pro league championship (Azadegan league) in May 2008. Qotbi was later re-appointed as the Persepolis head coach, but couldn't repeat his successful bid and left the club in the heat of the competition due to family concerns.
As a result of the weak results of Iranian national team, midway through qualifying matches for World Cup 2010, Qotbi replaced Ali Daei as head coach. However Iran at last failed to be qualified for the most important soccer event.
Disappointing results achieved by Iran's national soccer team in recent months such as losing 3-2 to Qatar in their first game of a four-nation friendly tournament followed by a loss to Mali has prompted some experts to speculate that Iran's Football Federation is seeking possible replacements for Qotbi.
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