JEDDAH, 21 December 2004 — Muhammad Nur was suspended for the rest of the season in the aftermath of his indifferent display in the 17th Gulf Cup that netted him two red cards including one during the critical match against Bahrain which Saudi Arabia lost by 3-0.
The suspension to cover both local and international matches was handed down at an emergency meeting yesterday of the Saudi Football Federation board chaired by federation president Prince Sultan ibn Fahd.
Also discussed during the meeting was a review of the Saudi team’s performance report submitted by the head of the Saudi delegation to the Doha tournament Abdullah Al-Athel, Argentinian head coach Gabriel Calderon and team manager Fahd Al-Musaibeeh.
Besides the suspension of Nur, the SFF decided during the meeting to 1) form a committee that will investigate the Kingdom’s poor performance in the Gulf Cup 2) restructure the national team committee 3) call a meeting to be chaired by SFF deputy president Nawaf bin Faisal of clubs in basically a brainstorming session to gather their inputs and suggestions.
Prince Sultan apologized for the national team’s poor performance saying they could have performed better. He assured everyone mistakes will be fixed when the team resume their campaign in the World Cup qualifying matches.
