A senior official of the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) had to resign Saturday after an ambiguous mail was apparently sent on his behalf to his counterparts in Israel, dpa reported according to Fars news agency.
Mohammad-Manour Azimzadeh, the head of the FFI foreign relations' office, resigned after a New Year's greeting mail by the FFI reportedly landed at the football federation of Israel, a political arch-foe of Iran.
The FFI said in a statement that the greeting mails are sent every year worldwide to all member federations of the world football governing body FIFA, "except the football federation of the Zionist regime" which has been deleted by the FFI from the relevant list.
The statement however said that a FIFA employee named Amir Navan - apparently an Israeli with Iranian origin - had forwarded the Iranian greeting message to the Israeli federation as well.
The FFI said that following the incident, Azimzadeh presented his resignation.
The FFI did however not clarify why Azimzadeh had to resign when the mail was sent by another person outside Iran to the Israeli federation.
Iran does not acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel and even Iranian athletes are in no way allowed to compete against Israeli teams in international tournaments, including at the Olympics.