Iraq football coach resigns following death threat

BAGHDAD: The coach of Iraq's national football team has resigned and fled Baghdad following death threats against him in the latest blow to sport in the strife-torn country.              

By Saturday, coach Akram Ahmed Salman was thought to be in the northern Kurdish city of Arbil, following the presentation of his resignation to the head of the Iraqi sports federation a day earlier.        

Iraqi sport is still reeling from the kidnapping of the chairman of the Olympic Committee and several other officials on July 15.         

"I received a threat from a group that threatened to kill me if I kept working with the team," 60-year-old Salman said on Friday, shortly before fleeing Baghdad.    

The threatening phone calls, which came on Thursday, were also aimed at assistant coach Rahim Hamid, who has also resigned. "The reason for the threat is not because of the performance of the team or my work with them, but because of my links to the Iraqi sports federation. I am paying the price for the rivalries between various sports officials," he said.            

Salman added that this was his second death threat. The first one he received coming from a group with Shiite links while the latest one came from a Sunni group.        

"In these kinds of circumstances and the increasing security tension, I just can't do my job anymore," he said.         

"The team needs a proper atmosphere in which to train, but now there is violence all around us that can strike at any time."              

Iraq's national team is ethnically mixed. The team itself left Saturday for Arbil to train for a series of matches in preparation for the latest round of Asian Cup qualifiers.           

Following games against Singapore in March and China in April, the team is scheduled to play another victim of regional violence, the Palestinian team in Amman on August 17.                 

On Wednesday the team returned from a series of friendly matches against their neighbors, beating Syria twice (3-1 and 2-1), but falling to Jordan 2-1.        

Salman was appointed coach in 2005 after his predecessor, Adnan Hamed, resigned following threats against his own life.              

Germany's Bernd Stange also quit as coach last year in fear for his safety. The team's moment of glory came in December 2005, when they beat Syria 4-3 in the West Asia Games in Doha.            

Salman was also part of the coaching staff in 1986, when Iraq made its one and only appearance in the World Cup.         

Earlier this year, Salman said, he received several offers to coach teams in the Gulf and regrets not accepting them.           

Sports have not been immune from Iraq's woes and in addition to the kidnapping of the Olympic Committee, the taekwondo team was kidnapped in May, the same month the national tennis coach was shot dead.