Captain Ahmad Radi, member of the Iraqi parliament demanded the dismissal of Egil Olsen, the Norwegian coach of the Iraqi national team, after the team tied China 1-1. The game took place in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The match came as part of the World cup finals qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup.

In a statement made to Al-Sharqia, Ahmad Radi said that he will talk with the Iraqi Union with regard to the possibility of dismissing Olsen and signing a contract with Kou Adrianissi, the Dutch coach of El-sad Al-Qatari club, who was dismissed from his job a few days ago.

Ahmad Radi explained the reason of his wish to dismiss Olsen saying that the latter did not stand by the players to give them his directions during the recent match with China, and remained sitting watching the match.

Ahmad Radi underlined the importance that the next coach should have a strong personality to deal firmly with the players.

El-Sayyed Akram Ahmad Salman, former coach of the Iraqi national team, and currently Erbil club, on the other hand said that “it is difficult to replace the coach now, especially that “we are in the stage of qualifying finals. A coach can not be judged by one match.”

In a statement made to Dubai Sports channel, after the match ended, Norwegian coach Egil Olsen said that the “circumstances were not favorable. We lost Asia's second and third best players,” referring to Younis Mahmoud who dropped out of the match during the first minute of the game because of his injury, and Nashat Akram who was kicked out 20 minutes before the end of the match after he received two yellow cards, thereby weakening the Iraqi teams’ attacks on China's goal keeper.

Mr. Olsen refused to talk about Mohsen Turki, the Iranian referee’s decisions against our national team which made Iraqi fans mad.

Meanwhile assistant coach, El-Sayyed Rahim Hamid, made a statement to Baghdad channel in which he said that “the most important reasons of our loss is that the referee cancelled a right goal scored by Jassem Mohamad at the end of the first half in addition to his wrong decision to dismiss Nashat Akram.”