Ahly suspend goal hero over Islamist salute

Ahmed Abdel-Zaher

| credits: english.ahram.org.eg

Egypt’s Al-Ahly football club on Tuesday suspended forward Ahmed Abdel Zaher from next month’s FIFA Club World Cup for celebrating a goal with a salute in support of Islamists.

Al-Ahly said they would also sell the 28-year-old at the end of the season and deprive him of prize money from the Cairo club’s victory Sunday in the final of the African Champions League.

Abdel Zaher held up four fingers when he scored Al-Ahly’s second goal in the 4-0 win over South Africa’s Orlando Pirates.

The four-finger salute has been adopted by supporters of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who the army overthrew on July 3.

The player has apologised to fans for the political stunt, and said in a statement that he would be willing to accept whatever punishment the club metes out.

Al-Ahly’s football committee had on Monday recommended Abdel Zaher be suspended from the FIFA Club World Cup in Morocco, following uproar in the media.

Egypt remains deeply polarised between Morsi’s supporters and the military-installed government four months after his ouster.

More than 1,000 people, mostly Islamists, have died in clashes since, many of them killed when police dispersed a protest camp in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya square.