Al-Ahly Suspends Striker Over Islamist Goal Celebration

CAF Champions League champion, Al-Ahly football club has suspended
striker Ahmed Abdel-Zaher without pay for using a four-fingered hand
gesture linked to supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsi in a
goal celebration, according to the Associated Press.
The newly crowned champion said that the 28-year-old forward was
suspended on Monday for showing the sign after scoring the second goal
in a 2-0 win over South Africa's Orlando Pirates in the African
Champions League final second leg in Cairo on Sunday.
Ahly won 3-1 on aggregate for its eighth continental club title.
The suspension means that Abdel-Zaher may miss next month's FIFA Club
World Cup in Morocco, the club sources said.
Islamists have often flashed the four-finger sign, called Rabaa (four)
in Arabic, at anti-military protests since a deadly crackdown on
supporters of ousted President Morsi in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya
square on August 14 left hundreds of people killed.
A senior member of the club told AFP news agency on condition of
anonymity that the move to suspend Abdel-Zaher was being taken because
"he mixed politics with sport".
Egypt's minister of state for sport, Taher Abu Zeid, said in a
statement that he "expects" the nation's football federation to
"suspend and fine Abdel-Zaher the way Kung Fu fighter Mohamed Youssef
was".
Egypt's Kung Fu Association banned Youssef from international
championships for two years after he wore a T-shirt bearing the
four-finger sign last month at a tournament in Russia.
"The ministry itself cannot take such decisions but the concerned
institutions can," said Abu Zeid.