Sri Lanka football coach Abdullah Al Mutairi has come out strongly against the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) after their 4-0 defeat to Bangladesh on Wednesday. The Kuwaiti coach claims he is being unfairly targeted because of his Arab background.
Al Mutairi faces a possible six-month ban and a $10,000 fine. He questioned why former European coach of India Igor Stimac received only a $500 fine for using abusive language towards match officials at the 2023 SAFF Championship.
Midnight email drama
According to Al Mutairi, SAFF's legal department emailed him around midnight on Tuesday, giving him merely 10 hours to reply to disciplinary claims.
The charges follow his remarks after Sri Lanka's 2-2 draw against Bhutan, where he criticised referee calls and demanded Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology. He asked why the federation could not wait until the next morning if he had not used abusive language.
“I believe SAFF has a problem, racism against Arabs,”Abdullah Al Mutairi
Final run in the region
Al Mutairi also brought up how Stimac physically interfered with a Pakistani player during a throw-in in 2023 without receiving such heavy punishment. He added that SAFF treated him unfairly back in 2021 when he was coaching Nepal.
Declaring that this will be his last visit to the SAFF region, the coach stated that he has sent in a 14-point reply to the notice and intends to publicly reveal proof backing his claims.
What happens next
Al Mutairi said he would publicly release evidence supporting his allegations after submitting a 14-point response to SAFF's disciplinary notice.
