Marked for Omar Abdulrahman
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
$1.7M from Sharjah for Hamdan Yaqoob. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 88 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Al Ahli sell a favourite for $1.7M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Hamdan Yaqoob was one of the reasons people came, and $1.7M does not replace that by itself.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Al Ahli have gone to Al Shabab with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Al Ahli can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The paperwork begins on Ahmed Fawzi
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Al Ahli have done the hard part with Baniyas, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Market24 Aug 2026
The paperwork is done: Diego Ferreira joins from Dibba in a deal worth $190.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Al Ahli this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
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Transfer targets
Too dear: Al Ahli walk away from Mayed Saeed
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The terraces
The town asked, and Al Ahli paid $190.0K
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Squad
Words at Al Ahli training over how hard people work
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 95 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Al-Ahli keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ibrahim Hussain was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
$190.0K was the most the club would pay and Al Dhafra were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Richard Boadu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad17 Aug 2026
No place for Richard Boadu in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Al Ahli are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Al Ahli heard it as anything else.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. El Masry have kept their man, and Al Ahli go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Al Ahli
Walid Al Shamsi and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Al Ahli
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Walid Saeed was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Bandar Saeed and Al Ahli agree another 2 years.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
A loan enquiry to San Lorenzo: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.