Al Sadd Announce Abdelkarim Hassan’s Exit

Abdelkarim Hassan

Abdelkarim Hassan, an accomplished national team defender and Asian Player of the Year in 2018, will no longer play for Al Sadd, the Doha football giants said on Tuesday.

In a message posted on its website, the club said: “The management of Al Sadd Club announces that the player Abdelkarim Hassan has been completely excluded from the ranks of the first football team".The message added: “This exclusion comes due to the player’s thinking that does not correspond to the goals and aspirations of the team in the next stage.”

The club and the player made no additional announcements. Hassan has long been a key player for Al Sadd. He also played for the Qatari team that won the Asian Cup in 2019 and made his World Cup debut last month with Al Annabi, a team that lost all three of their games.

The tall and fit 29-year-old played for Al Sadd for 12 years after joining them in 2010, the same year he made his international team debut. With the Qatari national team, he has 133 caps to his name. Abdelkarim joined Sadd as a young player and has only ever appeared on loan for one other team, KAS Eupen. In 2020, Hassan and Sadd agreed on a contract extension that would keep them together until 2024.

Al Sadd kept on their training in the meantime at the club's training center in anticipation of the Qatar Stars League (QSL), which resumes on January 4, 2023. To get the players to the necessary readiness, the coaching team has increased preparations. Al Sadd's matchup with Qatar SC is slated for the league's eighth round.

Eleven club players will miss the game since they are scheduled to play for Qatar in the Gulf Cup in Iraq. From January 4 to January 19, the Gulf Cup will be played.