JEDDAH, 16 May 2006 — General Presidency of Youth Welfare President Prince Sultan ibn Fahd, who also heads the Saudi Football Federation, yesterday announced the lineup of the Saudi national team in the World Cup in Germany.
The players were earlier approved by Prince Nawaf ibn Faisal, deputy chief of the presidency and head coach Marcos Paqueta.
The following are the team members: Muhammad Al-Daea, Mabrouk Zayed, Muhammad Khoja, Ahmed Al-Dokhi, Ahmed Al-Bahri, Muhammad Misaad, Rida Tukur, Naif Al-Qadi, Hamad Al-Muntashri, Hussein Abdul Ghani, Abdul Aziz Al-Khathran, Saud Kareeri, Khaled Aziz, Omar Al-Ghamdi, Muhammad Nur, Nawaf Al-Tamyat, Muhammad Al-Shalhoub, Muhammad Ameen, Sami Al-Jaber, Yasser Al-Qahtani, Saad Al-Harithy, Muhammad Al-Anbar and Malik Muad.
The announcement beat the FIFA deadline, which was yesterday, for submission of the final lineup of each of the 32 national teams that had qualified for the World Cup finals.
After a two weeks camp in Holland to prepare for the World Cup, the Saudi national team are returning home for a four days vacation.
The team will gather again on Saturday in Jeddah then leave for Austria the following day to resume their training camp there.
They will face the Czech national team in a friendly match on May 26 before proceeding to Germany for another friendly against Turkey on May 31.
The Saudi national team had two friendlies, first against Belgium in which they lost 2-1 and against Togo in which they won 1-0.
Fahd Al-Misaibih, manager of the Saudi national team acknowledged the efforts made by the players as well as the media coverage of their matches.
He also thanked Prince Sultan and Prince Nawaf for their encouragement to the national team.
Sultan Order to Boost Clubs’ Finances
Meantime, Prince Sultan ibn Fahd has issued an order aimed at helping first division clubs boost their financial coffers.
Starting next season, the clubs will be allowed to host soccer matches and take control of the monies from gate receipts and outdoor advertising.
This source of income will go a long way as far as club finances are concerned, according to Faisal Al-Nassar, consultant and general supervisor at Prince Sultan’s office.
Al-Nassar is looking forward that local football clubs will make the best of this new open door policy and opportunity of sports marketing by tapping all sources of income possible within their clubs.
These clubs, he said, will start running matches within their premises, with exception to tournaments GPYW will decide to run at its stadium.
