ENPPI president questions Mohamed Barakat’s four-match ban after Al Ahly dismissal

Ayman El-Sherei, president of the Eastern Company ENPPI Football Company, has criticised the decision to suspend Mohamed Barakat for four matches after the ENPPI coach was sent off against Al Ahly.

The Egyptian Professional Clubs Association imposed the ban following the incident in stoppage time during ENPPI’s 3-2 defeat by Al Ahly in the opening round of the Egyptian Premier League.

El-Sherei told FilGoal.com that the wording used by the referee, the disciplinary authorities and the league association did not appear to match.

“Referee Mahmoud Nagi says that the coach told him, ‘You don’t understand the law’, then described the incident in the disciplinary notification as misconduct and in the report as violent conduct, while the association’s decision described it as using an obscene phrase towards the referee,” El-Sherei said.

He added: “So does the sentence ‘You don’t understand the law’ constitute misconduct, violent conduct or an obscene phrase? That is why I say we do not need a legal analyst, but rather an Arabic language teacher so that we can understand.”

Barakat was dismissed in added time, with Nagi’s report stating that the red card was issued for misconduct.

El-Sherei had previously discussed the incident on On Sport radio, saying the coach’s dismissal was a greater concern than the penalty awarded to Al Ahly.

“My problem is bigger than awarding Al Ahly a penalty. It is the sending-off of Mohamed Barakat, the head coach, based on a strange report from the match referee,” he said.

“During a conversation with Mahmoud Nagi in an incident in added time, Barakat told the fourth official, ‘You do not understand the law’.”

El-Sherei also referred to recent changes to the Laws of the Game and questioned the application of one of them during the match.

“There are 10 amendments to the new refereeing law, and there are always controversial situations whenever a new law is introduced,” he said.

“What happened against Al Ahly was that Mohamed Essam fell on the pitch and Mahmoud Nagi asked him to leave and not return until the first stoppage, while Mohamed Barakat said that the fourth official had told him the player could return after one minute.”

El-Sherei said the rule was intended to prevent time-wasting but argued that the circumstances did not support that interpretation.

“This situation is applied when the referee believes the player is wasting time. It happened after we conceded the third goal, when we were looking for an equaliser, so how could our player have been wasting time?” he said.

He concluded: “My problem with Mahmoud Nagi’s report is that he described Mohamed Barakat’s sending-off for saying, ‘You do not understand the law’, as misconduct. That could cost us a four-match suspension.”

The result gave Al Ahly a second consecutive victory over ENPPI, ending a run of five matches in all competitions without a win against their opponents.

It was also the first match in charge for Al Ahly manager Hussein Ammouta, whose side recovered from falling two goals behind and moved into the group of teams at the top of the table.

Al Ahly will face ZED on Friday in the second round of the Egyptian Premier League, while ENPPI will host Wadi Degla on the same day.