Rasoul Khadem coaching Hassan Yazdani Cherati at the Olympics (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)The head of the Iran Wrestling Federation weighed in on the possibility of his nation's wrestling program being suspended from international competition for an incident last month where an Iranian wrestler allegedly threw a match rather than face an Israeli in the next round.
The IWF's Rasoul Khadem told Iran's Mehr News Agency, "Suspension of Iran wrestling is a very serious matter."
"Everybody in the country's sport community knows that the international wrestling governing body is under the influence of big political powers and powerful economic enterprises, so that they can impose their will on it," referring to United World Wrestling, the governing body for the sport in international competition.
Khadem also revealed that the Iran Wrestling Federation has been in "constant contact" with the UWW, and, in fact had traveled to the UWW's headquarters in Switzerland to make a case for the organization not to suspend the Iranian wrestling program.
Khadem pointed out that if there had not been for Iran Wrestling Federation's efforts, Iranian wrestling would have been suspended 20 days ago, when United World Wrestling announced it would be investigating "irregularities" in a freestyle match at the 2017 U-23 World Championships in Poland. As InterMat reported in late November, Iran's Ali Reza Karimi-Machiani allegedly intentionally lost his first-round match with Russia's Alikhan Zhabrailov at the instruction of his coaches when they realized their wrestler would have to face an opponent from Israel in the next match.
Iran does not recognize the state of Israel and forbids its athletes from competing against Israelis at international sports events.
Khadem admitted that the Iran Wrestling Federation does not have great influence on United World Wrestling, so it would have to use its connections in the International Olympic Committee, saying there are member countries within the IOC which have supported Iran over the years.
"It has been for their support that they (Iran Wrestling Federation) have not been suspended so far," according to Khadem.
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