Cairo (AFP)
Mortada Mansour, President of Zamalek, called the club’s board of directors to hold an emergency meeting today, Tuesday, after his team lost yesterday’s humiliation to its host, Pharco, by three clean goals, in the seventeenth stage of the Egyptian Football League.
Mansour wrote on his personal Facebook account: “What happened with Zamalek is something to be expected. All clubs supported their teams, but the conspiring Football Association refused to register the new Zamalek players.”
And he continued: “Accordingly, the board of directors was invited to an emergency session, to present the failure to complete the league competition, in light of this bad climate and the despicable plots led by the Football Association against Zamalek, with the aim of depriving the club of obtaining the league championship for the third time in a row, to satisfy the competing team.”
And the Football Association had issued an official statement last Tuesday, during which it announced that the Zamalek club would not register its new deals before the closing of the winter transfer window, namely the trio Nasser Mansi, the Moroccan Ahmed Belhaj, and the returnee from the loan, Mahmoud Shabana, because Zamalek did not pay the late financial dues on it, which were estimated at nearly 70. One million pounds, in addition to the value of fees for registering his new deals, which amount to two million and 800 thousand pounds.
The Egyptian Football Association contacted Zamalek club officials to inform them of the need to settle the late dues with the federation for several seasons, before the registration door was officially closed.
And in the last moments of the last day of the transfer market, Zamalek officials came to the Al Ittihad headquarters to register the three players, without scheduling the indebtedness, always according to the authority’s statement.
The Zamalek club uploaded the names of its players to the electronic transfer system, before 12 am, the end date of the registration, but the Egyptian Federation did not allow it to register the players, without settling the club’s indebtedness.
And the statement continued that despite addressing the club to pay the debts owed to the interest of the Egyptian Federation, whether in cash or through acceptable checks, the Zamalek club management refused, and requested the payment of a small amount of the indebtedness, of which 75% of its value goes to the tax treasury for registration.
For his part, Osama Nabih, coach of Zamalek, confirmed that the team is suffering from great pressure from Al-Ittihad, which was the reason for the loss against Pharco.
He said during the press conference after the match, “I am sad for the loss against Pharco. 3 mistakes cost us 3 goals. The pressure of the match made it difficult. Zamalek is suffering because of external matters.”
He added, “Zamalek was subjected to pressure last week from the Football Association due to the failure to register new players. I did not know whether to include the new deals in the match list or not, but I retracted the matter, especially since it would harm the team, which are reasons that made Zamalek suffer locally, and the suffering will not stop.” And it will continue in the African Champions League, even though we represent Egypt as the champion of the league.”
He concluded, “The position of the new trio must be determined if they will be registered or not, and if they are not registered, we will focus on the continental championship only.”
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