Al Ahly demand CAF action against Al Hilal

Assistant Referee keeps Abuaagla Mohamed Ahmed of Al Hilal and Hamdy Fathy of Al Ahly apart as the players argue during the CAF Champions League 2022/23 match between Al Hilal and Al Ahly held at Al-Hilal Stadium in Omdurman, Sudan on 18 February 2023 ©Sameh Abo EL Hassan/BackpagePix

by Staff Reporter

Wednesday Feb 22, 2023. 15:00

Al Ahly have lodged a complaint with the Confederation of African Football over incidents relating to their CAF Champions League tie at Al Hilal on Saturday.

The Red Eagles opened their Group B campaign with a 1-0 defeat to the Blue Wave at the Al Hilal Stadium in Omdurman, where Makabi Lilepo’s 53rd-minute goal settled the contest.

However, Marcel Koller’s side were subjected to abuse from officials and supporters of the Sudanese club before, during and after the match, which was played behind closed doors.

The 10-time African champions have written to CAF to demand action be taken against Al Hilal for the various transgressions.

“Al Ahly decided to lodge an official campaign to CAF against Al Hilal over the violations that contradicts all the sports’ ethics and regulations. The violations took place before, during and also after Saturday’s game in the CAF Champions League,” the Cairo giants said in a statement.

“During Friday’s training session, some of Al Hilal fans invaded the pitch and threw fireworks on our players amid the presence of CAF’s representative, who recorded the incident.

“Despite the decision to play the match behind closed doors for security reasons, Al Hilal allowed 1,000 supporters into the stadium. Moreover, they did not provide suitable and secured transportation for our team.

“A member of Al Hilal’s medical staff attacked our player Mohamed Abdel-Moneim with a medical instrument before insisting on staying on the bench despite receiving a red card by the referee and he also tried to attack our keeper Mohamed El Shennawy after the final whistle.

“Al Hilal failed to provide any kind of safety precautions for Al Ahly as the attending supporters verbally abused the head of Al Ahly’s delegation as well as the members of the Egyptian embassy before attacking the players while leaving the game.

“What happened on Saturday is a repeated scenario of violations from the Sudanese club which took place on previous occasions, including the pitch invasion during a game on 2 February 2020, however, the club refused to complain back then to maintain the good relations between both clubs.”