The Myanmar Football Federation has threatened to take disciplinary action against the former head coach of the Myanmar futsal team if he does not retract previous statements he made in support of the Rohingya.
Reza Kordi, an Iranian national, resigned from his role as head futsal coach in early September in protest of Myanmar’s “massacre of Muslims,” referring to the military operations in Rakhine State that have left as many as 1,000 people dead and displaced nearly 500,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh.
“I cannot work there because [the] FIFA charter states [that] religious and political issues and ideologies should be kept out of sports,” Kordi said upon his resignation.
The president of Iran’s National Olympic Committee, Kioumars Hashemi, praised Kordi for parting with the Myanmar Football Federation on humanitarian grounds.
On Monday, Kordi told Iran Front Page that the Myanmar Football Federation responded by laying out terms for Kordi’s resignation. In order to have his contract terminated, Kordi has been asked to rewrite his resignation letter so that it contains no mention of the mistreatment of Muslims in Myanmar, do an interview saying “the massacre of Muslims in Myanmar is a tribal conflict and the government of Myanmar has no role in the massacre,” and renounce the terms of his original contract with the futsal team.
“I only accept the third condition. They first asked me to return to Myanmar, but I sent an email saying I want my contract nullified. Based on the latest talks we had together, they set their conditions, but I refused to accept them. Now, they have threatened they will sue me at FIFA,” Kordi said.
He also told Iran Front Page that the Myanmar Football Federation is outraged by the extensive media coverage of his resignation.
“Some sources say even during a cabinet meeting, my case has been raised and discussed,” he noted.
Coconuts has reached out for comment from the federation and from Kordi.
