Amman — The Al-Wehdat club board of directors meeting, held the evening before last, was not destined to conclude peacefully, as the session set off a series of administrative disputes, ending with the withdrawal of the club's honorary president and backer, businessman Emad Al-Damaisi, in an atmosphere reflecting the scale of the rift emerging at the board table.
اضافة اعلان
It was clear from the start of this meeting that the board is living in a state of polarization, with forces divided into two camps, the first led by club president Youssef Al-Saqour, alongside Walid Al-Saudi, Ali Muslim, and Abdulrahman Jumaa, while the other camp includes Ziad Shalbaya, alongside vice president Khaled Al-Absi, Bassam Shalbaya, Nasser Daghmash, Zaid Abu Hamid, and Awad Al-Asmar, while board member Ghassab Khalil was absent from the meeting.
The atmosphere of the meeting indicates that the dispute wasn't born in the moment, as talk circulated behind the scenes about Shalbaya rallying a majority toward regaining management of football activity, a step that appeared to reopen one of the most sensitive files on the club's table.
The intensity of the debate rose upon reaching the file on the new head coach's contract and his assistant staff, particularly the clause regarding the bonus for winning the league title, which reached, according to circulating information, $40,000.
While honorary president and backer Emad Al-Damaisi expressed his readiness to cover the cost of the contract and bonuses, the details of the team's day-to-day operations entered the crisis, after team manager Tarek Khattab attended the meeting carrying the requirements of new head coach Emad El-Nahhas regarding the team's training, and the technical staff's need to book the weights room "gym" and a grass pitch.
Here the debate heated up between Khattab and Ziad Shalbaya, whom the club president had tasked with following this file, before the scope of the dispute widened and Bassam Shalbaya entered the fray, amid prior discomfort, according to what's circulating in club corridors, with Khattab remaining in his position as team manager, while the name Mohammad Jamal was put forward to return to the post.
As the circle of debate widened, Al-Damaisi intervened in support of keeping Khattab in his position, causing the confrontation to take a sharper turn, especially with Ziad and Bassam Shalbaya entering the discussion, which contributed to ending the meeting and postponing its completion to the following day.
The board meeting was resumed the next day, and continued until a late hour, amid attempts to contain the fallout from what happened, while disputes over the management of football activity and the relationship with the new technical staff remained at the forefront of the scene.
The repercussions of the board meeting didn't stop at the administrative rooms, but quickly reflected on the team's training scene, as physical training was held in the weights room "gym" in the absence of team manager Tarek Khattab, who expressed anger at what happened, while Ziad Shalbaya appeared during training, amid questions and speculation about the possible emergence of new alliances at the club's table.
Amid this atmosphere, Al-Wehdat's fans quickly entered the fray, as the "Wihdati" group and the Al-Wehdat Fans Association announced, in two statements, their rejection of what has happened at Al-Wehdat club, and affirmed their attendance at the team's training to support the players and the technical staff led by Emad El-Nahhas, stressing that administrative disputes and divisions should not be reflected on the team, though they expressed that they wouldn't attend the team's training, held yesterday, on the grounds that the club's administration changed the location and time of the training for reasons unknown, as they put it.
Whether or not fans attended training, their stance is a clear message about the need to give the new technical staff enough room to work during the break, away from administrative tug-of-war, and to work on lifting players' morale and preparing the team in a manner befitting its fans' ambitions, paving the way for a strong return to competition and standing on the podiums of the season's titles.
Al-Wehdat had ended its relationship with former head coach Wassim Al-Bzour after a rocky start to the season, before Egyptian Emad El-Nahhas took over the task, with the goal of rearranging the technical cards and making use of the current pause. El-Nahhas officially began his mission with the team, amid a desire to rebuild "the Green's" character and raise its readiness before competitions resume.
On the technical staff file, the name of Egyptian Amir Abdelhamid emerged as one of the candidates to join the staff led by El-Nahhas, particularly since he has worked with El-Nahhas before, while the file remains in need of official resolution from the club's administration, following the resignation of goalkeeping coach Omar Al-Kaswani.
Abdelhamid is a former Egyptian Al-Ahly goalkeeper, who began his career with the club before rising to the first team, where he stayed until the end of 2009, before moving to Al-Masry and then to other clubs, including Smouha, Wadi Degla, Enppi, and Ittihad Alexandria.
In recent years, Abdelhamid moved into goalkeeper coaching, working with age-group national teams in Egypt, and also coached Al-Ahly's goalkeepers for a period, before his name was recently tied to working with Emad El-Nahhas.
Resource: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Mustafa Balou
