Iran Question Referee Appointment For Asian Cup SF Against Qatar

DOHA: Iran's Saeid Ezatolahi raised doubts about the AFC appointing an Arab referee for their Asian Cup semi-final clash against hosts and defending champions Qatar while he also complained about the lack of recovery time in the knockout stage.

Wednesday's semifinal will be officiated by Kuwait's Ahmad Al-Ali who has taken charge of two group games and a last-16 tie at the tournament.

"What is a little bit surprising for us is that the referee for tomorrow's match is from Kuwait, he's an Arab," Ezatolahi told reporters on Tuesday.

"We're just wondering how it's possible that they put an Arab as a referee for tomorrow's match. "But we are the Iran national team, we are a very big team. We have a very good players, we are professional."

Reuters has contacted the AFC for comment. Iran reached the semi-finals after they beat Asia's top-ranked side Japan 2-1 despite having only two days to recover after their last-16 tie against Syria went to extra time and penalties.

"In this tournament the players didn't have enough time to recover, specifically in the knockout stage," he added. "Many of the players came straight from the their clubs and are under a lot of pressure here."

Iran coach Amir Ghalenoei reiterated the rest period being "less than 72 hours" before they faced Japan while he also took a shot at the Video Assistant Referees. "In this tournament at least, I can say that VAR was not very kind to us. We had a situation in the match against Japan that could have been a penalty on Sardar Azmoun but VAR did not check it for us," he said.

"But we have to be stronger than everything that is happening at this tournament."