The Tunisian Prime Minister-designate, Habib El-Gamli, chose the star of Esperance and the former Tunisian national team, Tariq Dhiab, to assume the post of Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs within an independent national competencies government, which he revealed today, Thursday.
In the event that the new government obtains the confidence of the House of Representatives, he will assume the responsibility of sports affairs and youth for the second time, after he held this position in the governments of the Ennahda Movement party after the revolution that toppled former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.
Dhiab, who is currently a football analyst for Qatar's BN Sports network, starred with Esperance and the Tunisian national team in the 1970s and 1980s, and is the only Tunisian player to win the African Golden Ball in 1977.
He contributed to qualifying Tunisia for the first time in its history to the World Cup Finals in Argentina in 1978, and participated with the Tunisian national team in the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988.
The term of the former player, Esperance and Tunisia, has previously been strained in his relationship with the president of the Tunisian Football Federation, Wadih Al-Jaree.
It is expected that the differences will return again between the two, especially as Diab was keen to blame the boldest whenever the opportunity allowed him during his analysis of sporting events.