Is Essam El-Hadary Testing the Webster Ruling? Maybe, maybe not

Is Essam El-Hadary going to be our test case for the Webster ruling, or isn’t he? The battle is on. Just last week Daryl was saying that Essam El-Hadary, the African Cup of Nations-winning goalkeeper from Egypt, was going to be the Webster test. Webster, if you remember, is the extremely controversial new ruling that says “players can buy out the remaining years of their own contract, provided they’ve already completed three years (if they’re under 28) or two years (if they’re over 28) of said contract.” Last week it looked like El-Hadary was going to be the test case. He signed a three-year contract with Sion of Switzerland despite being under contract to Al Ahly of Egypt. Under the ruling he has the right to do this, provided he buys out his remaining Al Ahly contract. In this case, the dollar amount would be about $400,000. But Al Ahly does not want to let their star goalkeeper go, and they are fighting back by invoking article 16 of FIFA’s “Regulations for the Status and Transfer of Players,” which state that a contract can’t be broken unilaterally (by one party only) in the middle of the season. Hmm. That seems pretty straightforward. Or not. Depending on which articles you read. According to an article dated Monday from Afriquenligne, El-Hadary love-love-loves Al Ahly. Does not want to move. He recently went on Egyptian TV saying that he’d made a mistake in trying to go to Europe, and instead really wants to stay in Egypt. Al Ahly has announced it is investigating the disputed transfer, local Egyptian Web site filgoal.com reported Sunday. Al Hadary will likely face a heavy sanction if he returns to Al Ahly. “I return to Al Ahly because I realized that I shouldn’t have done that,” the 35-year-old goalkeeper said in the television programme. I feel sorry and I’m ready to accept any decision by the club.” Egyptians believe that powerful politicians, possibly Gamal Mubarak (President Hosni Mubarak’s son and possible successor), prevailed on him to return. But wait a second. Not so fast. In another article , also dated Monday, March 3, Sion unveils El-Hadary to the press as their new goalkeeper. Which he apparently is. Aside from the little fact that Al-Ahly won’t let him play for the new team. Lars Gansauer, Sion’s public relations officer, however, admitted that; “At the moment he’s not qualified to play, but we are trying our best to get him to play as soon as possible. We are in communication with Al Ahly - but one minute we are having good communications with them and then the next minute they are taking two steps back. We have requested FIFA to give us a temporary licence for the player, so he can play for us next week.” El-Hadary’s comments about Sion? (Again, remember that these two articles appeared on the same day.) “I am delighted to be at Sion. I want to concentrate on working with the club and to help my team-mates achieve good results and have a good season. I want to play for Sion and win titles.” Now I’m really confused. So let’s move forward a day to yesterday’s news articles to see if they clear things up. According to the Sion folks in an article dated March 4, El-Hadary has been threatened and was forced to make the first set of comments on Egyptian TV. The second set, though, where he says he wants to play in Switzerland, is how he really feels. At least according to the Swiss. “He has been under a lot of pressure and received terrible threats, his family was insulted, some considered him a traitor, so he had to go back,” Christain Constantin was quoted as saying by Le Matin newspaper. “According to the contract he signed, the player belongs to us, which means that he cannot play for any other club. If Ahly chose to play him, they shall be deemed as losers automatically,” he pointed out. But also yesterday, Filbalad reports that it’s a done deal that El-Hadary is back with Al-Ahly. And yes, he will face sanctions for even attempting to leave. Al-Hadari made a U-turn later on and returned back to Ahli, apparently after learning that his legal stance wouldn’t do him any favor if the Egyptian champions took his case to FIFA. I think it’s safe to say that nobody really has any clue how this one will end up. (Thanks to Road to 2010 World Cup Final for keeping an eye on this story.)