Postponed football season in Jordan .. Unemployed players and financially helpless clubs

Yacoub al-Hosani-Amman

"The Jordanian clubs are suffering from a severe shortage of financial resources and the players suffer from difficult economic conditions and a sharp decline in their technical level due to the long pause that lasts until February next year, the Football Association killed the game and sentenced to death," he said. - One of the poles of Jordanian football - the current situation of Jordanian football.

In May, the president of the Jordan Football Association, Prince Ali bin Al Hussein, met with a number of sports media men and announced the postponement of the football season from August 2019 until the beginning of February 2020.

Prince Ali confirmed that the decision was made to rearrange the internal house of the game and to prepare the national team for the 2022 World Cup qualifiers.

A few days after the announcement of the postponement of the Secretary General of the Football Association Cesar Soubar during a sports program broadcast through the local channel Kingdom, to confirm that the decision came in consultation with clubs during a retreat that preceded the 2018-2019 season in the Dead Sea region, stressing that all clubs agreed to put up and did not appear No reservations.

"The start of next season in February and its continuation until October is in line with the Asian agenda, in terms of teams and clubs in the qualifiers and continental tournaments," said Jordan Football Federation media adviser Amjad Majali.

Majali told Al Jazeera Net that "there are other considerations for the postponement; play in the winter caused the public reluctance to cool the atmosphere, and the new agenda avoided a conflict with the time of the 2022 World Cup."

However, the poles of Jordanian football Faisali and units criticized the decision to postpone and assured Al Jazeera Net that the period of continuous stoppage of more than eight months is not in favor of clubs.

Al-Faisali club secretary Samer Hourani said that "the federation sentenced the game to death, and confined it to only thirty or forty players, who represent the first team and the Olympic team."

"The postponement of local championships for this long period is devastating for the clubs, the players and the Jordanian football system as a whole," said Ziad Shelbaya, a member of the board of directors of Al Wehdat club.

"The clubs' agreement with the federation to postpone the football season was based on the federation's promise to compensate the suspension by holding a refresher tournament in August and giving the clubs approximately $ 30,000 a month to supplement its treasury," Shelbaya said.

Since the club won the Jordan Cup on March 2, there has been no official domestic match.

The suspension period was reflected negatively on more than five hundred players, according to the spokesman for professional players Mohammed Abdul Rauf, who confirmed to Al Jazeera Net that "the long pause prompted many players to go to engage in public and private sectors to face the difficult economic conditions."

He asked, "How will the matches that will be played on the soil of the youth teams of Aqaba and Maan (southern Jordan) during the summer months, as the temperature exceeds in the south 50 degrees Celsius?".

International expert and lecturer Nihad Soqwar criticized the decision to postpone, stressing that it has negative effects on the game present and future.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Sugwar proposed the establishment of a refresher championship for clubs, then the Jordan Cup with the participation of 32 teams from all grades, to become the professional league championship for the season 2020-2021.

In the last months that coincided with the suspension, the Jordanian national team lost five important points during their joint Asian qualifying campaign for the World Cup in Qatar 2022 and the Asian Cup 2023, and the Jordanian junior teams and youth failed to qualify to the Asian finals during their participation in the last qualifiers. Al-Jazira Club reached the AFC Cup final after losing to Al-Ahed, which was later crowned the title, and the youth of Jordan emerged from the round of 16 of the Arab Clubs Championship.