JEDDAH, 14 September 2007 — After Al-Ittihad’s Hamad Al-Muntashiri won the AFC Player of the Year award on 2004, chances are another Saudi might bag the coveted award this year. Yasser Al-Qahtani of Al-Hilal, Abdullah Al-Astaa of Al-Shabab, and Saleh Al-Ghwainim of Al-Qadisia are among the 33 candidates in the primary list with 40 points or more.
Nominations are still open for other candidates.
While three Saudis were nominated another three failed to make it upsetting football fans in the Kingdom. These are Malik Mouath, Taiyseer Al-Jasim and Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani, who each won Best Player award during the last AFC Asian Cup tournament. Mouath was cited during Saudi Arabia’s game against Japan, Al-Jasim in the match against Bahrain and Al-Qahtani in the Indonesia matchup.
Saudi fans are betting on “The Sniper” Al-Qahtani to win the AFC plum. This is because he has already collected 80 points from the games he played against Korea and Uzbekistan at the AFC Asian Cup. He will also participate at the Asian Champions League, which will kick off this month, and this gives him more chances. Hence, in case he won the award during the team’s first home and away games this will add to his record 40 points, 20 from each game against Al-Wehda of UAE. The list of 33 players was decided after Match Day 2 of AFC Final Round for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games played on Sept. 8, according to the AFC official website. Players who have collected 40 or more points in this year’s AFC or FIFA competitions have been included in this primary list. The AFC Annual Awards ceremony in addition will be held on Nov. 28 in Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion.
The list includes Nashat Akram, Said Ali, Karrar JAssim, Ala’a Khshen, and Younis Mahmoud (Iraq), Yasuhito Endo, Sota Hirayama, Kengo Nakamura, Shinji Ono (Japan), Salehi Seyed Mohamed Mehdi, Javad Nekounam (Iran), Mohanad Al-Ibrahim , Iyad Mando (Syria), Abdul Raheem Al-Jenaibi (UAE), Ahmed Al-Mahaijri (Oman), Bader Al- Mu tawa, Khaled Matar (Kuwait),Hani Bait Al-Noobi (Oman),Vinh Le Cong , Duc Nguyen Anh (Vietnam),Travis Dodd(Australia), Won Han Dong (Korea), Woon Jae LE, Nam Chol Pak (Korea Republic), Ismaeel Hasan (Bahrain), Azizbek Haydarov (Uzbekistan), Akmal Holmatov (Tajikistan), Weera Koedbudsa (Thailand), Teeratep Winothai (Thailand), and Youngpo Wang (China).
