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Most of professional clubs complete contracts with expatriate players

Most of the UAE professional clubs have completed their contracts’ procedures with foreign players, in their preparations for the championships of the upcoming season 2012/2013, and now they are about to end their warm up camps and return back home after playing some strong friendly matches to determine the technical level of the team’s all local and foreign players.


Al Ain Senior Football Team, champions of the 4th edition of the Etisalat Pro League for the previous season, have not yet filled their 4th remaining foreign spot. They are currently seeking for an Asian player to replace the Saudi star Yasser Al Qahtani, who played last season with Al Ain on loan basis before returning to his Saudi team Al Hilal. Al Ain retained their Romanian midfielder Radoi and Ghanaian Asamoah Gyan and signed a four-season deal with French front liner Ekoko.

Al Nasr Club, League runners up in the last season, managed to retain their Brazilian player Leonardo Lima, the most participating professional player in the Etisalat Pro League Championship in the last season. Al Nasr also signed contracts with Italian Mascara Giuseppe, Brazilian Bruno Cesar Korea, and Iraqi Nashat Akram, while Al Shabab added to their list for this season both Brazilians Luiz Henrique and Adjarda Silva to join their countryman Ciel and retained the Uzbek  player Azizbek Haydarov to play with them in championships of the new season .

On the other Al Jazira, champions of the President’s Cup in the last season have retained Brazilian Ricardo Oliveira and Argentine Matias Delgado and replaced both the Australian Lucas Neill with the South Korean player Chen Hong Min and Brazilian Bare with his compatriot Fernandenho.

Al Ahli seem to be the only team to keep their four foreign players: Chilean Jimenez, Emana from Cameroon in addition to Brazilian Grafite and Lebanese Yousuf Mohammed, unlike Al Wahda Club who sacked all four foreign players to sign a deal recently with Croatian midfielder Sardan Andrebic, the Jordanian National Team defender Anas Bani Yaseen as an Asian professional, Gabonese striker Eric Molongi and Senegalese striker Papa N'Diaye whereas Ajman have signed with the Iranian league's top scorer Vunka in the first summer deals, Iraqi Karrar Jassim and retained Algerian Karim Karkar and Boris Kabi from Ivory Coast.

Al Wasl Club had terminated the services of their former Argentine coach Diego Armando Maradona to replace him with Frenchman Bruno Metsu, besides signing a contract recently with Australian Lucas Neill coming from Al Jazira. They kept their Argentine Mariano Donda and Chilean Edison Butch and completed their quartet Professional list by contracting with Egyptian player Mahmoud Shekabala coming from Egypt's club Al Zamalik.

Bani Yas made a deal with Egyptian player Mohammed Zidane in one of the most important and prominent contracts in this season, in addition to signing a contract with Moroccan Ismail Balmalam and Australian Nicholas Alberto Carl to substitute the Omani Fawzi Basheir as a play maker and an Asian professional, while they retained their top Senegalese scorer Andre Sengahoor.
Dubai were able to contract with Al Wasl former Australian player Porta, Al Wahda Ex Brazilian midfielder Magrao, and kept their duo French players Nicolas Marin and Simon Fondono while Ittihad Kalba renewed their contract with Frenchman Gregory  for one season and signed a one-year  contract with Moroccan Nabil Al Daoudi along with Jordanian Amer Deeb as an Asian player.
Moreover, Dibba Al Fujairah Club management has contracted with Brazilians Alex Alexander, Luis Fernandez and Syrian Abdul Razak al-Husseini to play for their Senior Team and at the same time retained the other Brazilian defender Junior Da Silva.