JEDDAH, 6 March 2005 — The Saudi Football Federation (SFF) criticized the statement that Al-Ahli honorary member Prince Khaled ibn Abdullah issued last Tuesday that criticized the performance of Saudi and Arab referees, an official source said here. The source said the SFF found these criticisms exceeded the boundaries of objective criticism by accusing referees of betrayal and dishonesty.
The official source described the accusation as unacceptable injustice to Saudi and Arab referees. The source said that there is no proof to justify these accusations. The source criticized the accusation against Arab referees saying that they are performing their duties based on rules and regulations of the game and it is not fair to blame them for a team’s failure.
The source also criticized another point in Prince Khaled’s statement that implied that honest competition is over. The source said that what is needed is clarity in dialogue and in criticism. According to the source, what is needed is to stay away from negative criticism and questioning the honesty of referees.
The source said that is normal for referees to make mistakes and this phenomenon is not restricted to the Kingdom, as referees make mistakes all over the world. The source said there were many examples where referees’ blunders had proved quite costly for a team, whether in the World Cup or European Cup or any other competition.
The source cited the example of the Saudi national team, which fell victim to a referee’s error. It happened during the match between Saudi Arabia against Uzbekistan. The referee canceled a Saudi goal, when many critics and experts ruled that the goal was correct. The SFF did not issue a statement criticizing the referees because they know that referees are human and make mistakes. The same source said that the SFF dealt with all Saudi teams uniformly. There are no exceptions, and there is no difference in treatment to all Saudi teams.
The source said that the statement issued by the Ahli club was to direct attention away from the problems the club faced, within and without. The source said that such statements are not approved and that the team should always stay away from issuing such negative statements.
The source also strongly criticized the way that Ahli fans distributed tens of thousands of black flags during the recent Arab Championship League match. The source said that the sight of black flags on the stadium was very negative because it happened for the first time in Saudi games and it did not serve Saudi sports, while also being against Saudi culture. The source said that such incidents would not be allowed again in Saudi stadiums.
Probables Named for Asian Qualifiers
Meanwhile, Prince Sultan ibn Fahd, chief of the Youth Welfare Presidency, yesterday named the probables who would be attending the training camp from which the Kingdom’s team for the Asian qualifiers for the World Cup would be selected.
They are: Mabruk Zayed, Hamad Al-Muntashry, Reza Takur, Saleh Al-Saqri, Saud Kareeri, Manaf Abu Shagir, Muhammad Nur (from Al-Ittihad), Hadi Shareefi, Muhammad Shareefi, Mohsen Al-Harithy, Mansour Al-Thaqafi, Saad Al-Zahrani (from Al-Nasr), Ahmed Al-Dokhi, Khaled Aziz, Muhammad Shalhoub, Sami Al-Jaber (Al-Hilal), Naif Al-Qadi, Taysir Al-Jasim, Saheb Al-Abdullah (Al-Ahli), Zaid Al-Muwalled, Ahmed Ateef (Al-Shabab), Ahmed Al-Bahri (Al-Ittifaq), Yasser Al-Qahtani (Al-Qadisiya) and Nasser Al-Shamrani (Al-Wahda).
