LONDON: While all is going well for Al-Shabab at the top of the Saudi Pro League, the club have been hit by twin bans following a racism row that erupted at a Feb.13 clash with Al-Nassr and shows little sign of stopping.
On Friday, the Saudi Arabia Football Federation’s (SAFF) Discipline and Ethics Committee issued club President Khaled Al-Baltan with a ban from all sporting activity for two months and a $10,660 fine for his role in an altercation with Al Nassr’s Hussein Abdulghani during a league meeting between the two Riyadh teams that ended 4-0 to Al-Shabab.
While Al-Shabab refused to comment when contacted by Arab News, Al-Nassr president, Safwan Al-Suwaiket quickly made his displeasure known on Friday, complaining that the penalties given to Al-Shabab were too light.
RIYADH: Saudi Pro League leaders Al-Shabab extended their competition lead to four points with an emphatic 4-0 victory over struggling Riyadh rivals Al-Nassr at Mrsool Park on Saturday in a match that is still being talked about several days later but for all the wrong reasons.
With two minutes left on the clock and Al-Shabab leading 3-0, manager Carlos Hernandez brought on veteran Nawaf Al-Abed for Brazilian winger Sebastian Junior, commonly known as “Seba.”
Play had stopped for Abderazzak Hamdallah to take a penalty for Al-Nassr, but the remainder of the match and the few days since have been shaped not by the Moroccan’s fourth miss from the spot this season or by former Manchester United striker Odion Ighalo adding a fourth Al-Shabab goal in added time to put the icing on the cake of a famous victory, but by an exchange that happened just outside the pitch perimeter.