The president of the Iranian Football Federation (IFF), Ali Kaffashian, has apologised for his organisation’s strange and confusing decision to send a New Year’s greeting to a fictional country. The IFF’s foreign affairs chief Mohammad-Manour Azimzadeh has also resigned, taking responsibility for the mistake.

The made-up state, ‘Israel’, which is thought to be a figment of Azimzadeh’s imagination, was included inadvertently on a mailing list of real countries, all members of football’s world governing body FIFA.

“This was a bizarre and puzzling action, about which we are deeply sorry. It is not acceptable for our foreign affairs director to go around inventing countries without explanation,” said Kaffashian. “Of course, we would like to reiterate our heartfelt good wishes to all of FIFA’s member states, but not to this one fake country, towards which we have no feelings whatsoever, since it doesn’t exist.”

Little is known about ‘Israel’, except that it is believed to be a region of ethnic Jewish and Arab peoples existing solely in the mind of Azimzadeh. His mistake, meanwhile, has been labelled the most embarrassing football gaffe since former England manager Steve McClaren sent a Christmas card to the national coach of Lilliput – a faux pas made worse by the fact that the card was 40 times larger than the recipient’s entire body.

Representatives of the national football association of ‘Israel’ could not be reached for comment, presumably because the contact details for the non-existent body correspond to no physical address, or else some ethereal plane inhabited only by pixies and rabbis.