KUALA LUMPUR, 1 December 2005 — Saudi Arabia’s defender Hamad Al-Muntashiri was named Asian Player of the Year yesterday and Japan was crowned team of the year at an awards ceremony overshadowed by controversy.
The Al-Ittihad star beat off the challenge of Uzbekistan’s Dynamo Kiev striker Maksim Shatskikh for a title diminished by the exclusion of most of Asia’s best players because they could not travel to Kuala Lumpur.
An Asian Football Confederation (AFC) dictate that a player must attend the ceremony to be eligible for the award ruled out Manchester United star Park Ji-Sung and his South Korean teammate Lee Young-pyo of Tottenham Hotspur.
It also excluded the Japanese pair of Shunsuke Nakamura and Hidetoshi Nakata, and last year’s winner Ali Karimi of Bayern Munich.
The ruling sparked an angry rebuke from the Korean Football Association, and an admission from the AFC that it would reexamine the rules.
“So much has happened in Asian football this year. In coming years I promise you we will be better than this year and we will be celebrating better achievements than this year,” said AFC President Mohammed Bin Hammam.
Al-Muntashiri, one of the few defenders to pick up the award, now in its 12th year, was pivotal in helping his club win the AFC Champions League and in helping Saudi Arabia reach the World Cup finals in Germany next year.
Asian powerhouse Japan was named team of the year, preferred ahead of South Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia, all of whom qualified for the World Cup. Asian champions Al-Ittihad took out the club team of the year title while North Korea’s Choe Myong Ho, touted as the new Ronaldinho, picked up youth player of the year.
Japan’s Natsuko Hara was named women’s player of the year while the inaugural Asian association of the year went to Qatar, the home nation of Bin Hammam.
In another controversial move, no coach of the year was announced after the AFC decided to exclude foreigners and ruled that no Asian was worthy.
All of Asia’s representatives at the World Cup are managed by non-Asian coaches.
Player: Hamad Al-Muntashiri (Saudi Arabia); Women’s Player: Natsuko Hara (Japan); Team: Japan Women’s Team: Japan U17; Club: Al Ittihad (Saudi Arabia); Youth Player: Choe Myong Ho (North Korea); Futsal team: Iran Association: Qatar Fairplay: Hong Kong Official: Shamsul Maidin (Singapore).
