JEDDAH, 24 July 2007 — A committee formed by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) will hold a meeting tomorrow to formulate new airtight rules and regulations aimed at protecting the rights of both the club and the professional footballer.
The Saudi Professional Committee also hopes to address growing concerns of foreign and local professionals in the Saudi league including health insurance, player transfer market and pension. These concerns have been highlighted in a study conducted by the General Security Department of SAFF, and hence the formation of the committee.
Dr. Saleh ibn Nasser is the president of the SPC, which has been mandated by the SAFF to work out the new rules and regulations and hold seminars to create awareness among athletes and clubs of their rights.
Taking a leaf from the FIFA, each club will also have a committee to deal directly with their foreign professionals and their agents/managers.
“The new rules and regulations will secure and protect all the athletes’ and clubs’ rights. Make sure there is a balance and those who do their duties probably will not face any difficulty, while those who do not will be taken to task,” Prince Nawaf ibn Faisal, deputy president of Saudi Youth Welfare and Saudi Arabian Football Federation told a press conference in Jakarta recently.
To help Nasser run the committee former Saudi professionals with a wealth of experience in the game might be considered, according to Arabic daily Arriyadi. Among them are Majed Abdullah, Saleh Al-Dawoud, Hamad Al-Dibaikhi, Hussain Al-Sadig, Mansour Al-Ahmed, Abdullah Al-Barqan and Abdulrahman Al-Roumi.
There were reports in the Arabic press that 11 complaints have been filed with FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) against Saudi clubs in the past four seasons.
When contacted by Arab News the FIFA Media Department, however, said they knew no such cases. “We don’t have a specific statistic on the number of cases in each country.” When pressed to comment on the specific cases of Al-Ittihad club with Luis Figo, Jared Borgetti and Flavio Chico; and Al-Nasr club with Denilson de Oliveira Araujo, Ibrahim Mattir and Carlos Tenorio, FIFA Media Department again confirmed they do not have cases lodged by these players.
Also, Prince Nawaf ibn Faisal has said in the Jakarta press conference that these cases have been resolved with FIFA and that even the clubs that did not pay their players’ dues did so this month. These clubs were forced to pay up under pain of not being able to recruit foreign players as per the rule that bans clubs with financial obligations from signing players.
Prince Nawaf said the rule has been relaxed to allow Saudi professionals to play abroad upon reaching the age of 23. “I am personally in favor of the talented athletes finding the right opportunities to play abroad.”
The mechanics of player health insurance and pension are included in the new rules and regulations to published on the federation website www.saff.com.sa after tomorrow’s meeting of the committee.
