Saudi official expects team to be in top ten, sees Saudis and Kuwaitis making France 98
Saudi Arabia, Sports, 10/3/1997

A member of the Saudi Football federation, Prince Waleed Bin Bader Bin Saud said on October 2 that the Saudi football team would in the coming decade be among the world's top ten ranked teams, according to the international federation of football association (FIFA) rankings.

Prince Waleed, said that the results of the advancement in Saudi sports, especially football, is due to careful planing and unlimited support by the government of the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques King Fahad Bin Abdulaziz and the continuous follow-ups by the chairman of the Saudi Youth Prince Faisal Bin Fahd and his deputy Prince Sultan Bin Fahd.

He also said that Saudi players would be allowed to play outside Saudi Arabia as professionals, by next year.

About the world cup 1998 qualifying matches Prince Bader said "predicting any team from group A to reach the finals at current time is unrealistic ".

The group has in it Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Iran and China.

Iran leads the group with five points, followed by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia with four points and at the bottom of the group are Qatar and China with one point each.

About the match of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait on October 17 in Kuwait, Prince Bader said that "the Kuwaiti team plays at home among its supporters when it plays in Saudi Arabia and the same goes for the Saudi team when it plays in Kuwait".

The third tournament is scheduled from December 12-20.

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search