Baghdad - Iraq's government should intervene to settle the country's football crisis, the country's national team coach said Saturday. "The prime minister should personally intervene to bring all the different parties to the negotiating table and reach a solution satisfactory to them all," coach Nazem Shakir told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
There was no immediate response from Nuri al Maliki, the premier.
FIFA, world football's governing body, ousted the Iraqi team earlier this month from competing internationally, following the decision of the country's Olympic committee to dissolve the national football association's governing board.
The move to dissolve the board stemmed, the Olympic committee said, from alleged financial irregularities and delaying elections.
FIFA executive committee had in late September granted Iraq until April next year to adopt new statutes and to elect a new board, saying the process had to be completed without interference from governmental authorities.
FIFA has expressed concerns that "some quarters in the Iraqi government might be trying to force earlier elections or otherwise interfere in the process."
