Abbas Saad ( ar, عباس سعد; born 1 December 1967) is an Australian

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

manager and former player, who is currently managing

National Premier Leagues NSW The National Premier Leagues NSW is a semi-professional soccer competition in New South Wales, Australia. The competition is conducted by Football NSW, the organising body in New South Wales (the other being the National Premier Leagues Northern ...

side

Sydney Olympic Sydney Olympic Football Club is an Australian semi-professional association football, soccer club, based in Belmore, New South Wales, Belmore, Sydney, New South Wales, that plays in the National Premier Leagues NSW. The Club was founded as Pan- ...

International career

Born in Lebanon, Saad's family moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

when he was a child. An

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As #Cent ...

with a good eye for goal, he represented the Australian national team in a match against Russian club

Torpedo Moscow Football Club Torpedo Moscow (russian: link=no, ФК "Торпедо" Москва, ''FK Torpedo Moskva''), known as Torpedo Moscow, is a Russian professional football club based in Moscow that was founded in 1924 and returned to the Russian Pre ...

and earned his first full cap against

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

two years later. After a six-year gap, he was recalled by then Socceroos coach

Terry Venables Terence Frederick Venables (born 6 January 1943), often referred to as El Tel, is an English former football player and manager, and an author. During the 1960s and '70s, he played for various clubs including Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Queen ...

for three games in 1998.Abbas: Finally My Hell Is Over
''Australian FourFourTwo'', 16 March 2009 In all, he played six times for his country, earning four full caps.

Club career

Saad began his playing career in 1985 at Sydney City, before moving to

. In 1990, he was awarded the

Joe Marston Medal The Joe Marston Medal is an A-League award given to the player of the match in the A-League Grand Final each year. Introduced in 1990, previously the award was also given to the best player in the National Soccer League grand final. The medal i ...

for the being the Player of the Match in the NSL final in which Sydney Olympic beat the

Marconi Stallions Marconi Stallions Football Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club based in Fairfield, Sydney, New South Wales. The club has been crowned Australian champion four times. The Stallions are the soccer team of Club Marconi, a social ...

2–0. He then played in the

Malaysian League The Malaysian League or also known as the M-League (Malay: ''Liga Malaysia'' or ''Liga-M'') is a terminology used to describe the professional association football league in Malaysia. The terminology was mainly used to describe the league and it ...

for

Johor Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

in the early 1990s. He was a key member of teams which won the League and

Malaysia Cup The Malaysia Cup ( ms, Piala Malaysia), formerly known as ''Malaya Cup'', is an annual association football, football tournament in Malaysia, held at the end of the calendar year. The cup was first held in 1921. Despite its prestige and popular ...

double with both Johor in 1991 and Singapore in 1994. In the 1994 Malaysia Cup final, Saad scored a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

in Singapore's 4–0 victory over

Pahang Pahang (;Jawi alphabet, Jawi: , Pahang Hulu Malay: ''Paha'', Pahang Hilir Malay: ''Pahaeng'', Ulu Tembeling Malay: ''Pahaq)'' officially Pahang Darul Makmur with the Arabic honorific ''Darul Makmur'' (Jawi: , "The Abode of Tranquility") is a ...

Conviction for match-fixing in Singapore

Shortly after the 1994 triumph, Saad was charged with

match-fixing In organized sports, match fixing is the act of playing or officiating a match with the intention of achieving a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. There are many reasons why match fixing might take place, ...

in Singapore. He has always maintained he was innocent of this charge. During his trial, he admitted that he had been approached by his teammate Michal Váňa (a Czech player who was also charged with match-fixing but who jumped bail and left Singapore before he could be tried), who asked Saad to help him win certain matches by large margins during the 1994 season as Váňa was betting on the outcome of the games. However Saad stated that he had refused to help Váňa try to fix the scores of any games, and had merely told Váňa that he would try to help the Singapore team win the games by as many goals as possible as this was his job. Saad had not reported Váňa's requests or his knowledge that Váňa was betting on games to team officials or the authorities, but stated during his trial that he had told Váňa that he should stop betting on matches. In June 1995, the Singapore courts convicted Saad of match-fixing and fined him S$50,000. He then received a global playing ban from

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

. Saad continues to maintain that he was innocent of match-fixing, and that he merely knew that Váňa was betting on the outcomes of matches but was not involved himself. Speaking about the verdict in an interview in 2009, Saad said: "(Váňa) approached me once and said 'you score goals?' and I said 'of course I score goals, I'm a striker'. And so that conversation was taken out of context. There was no money received or nothing like that. I don't know how they built a case, I think it was a technical thing. I'm not a lawyer."

Resumption to playing career

After his ban ended, Saad played for several teams in the

National Soccer League The National Soccer League (NSL) was the top-level soccer league in Australia, run by Soccer Australia and later the Australian Soccer Association. The NSL, the A-League's predecessor, spanned 28 seasons from its inception in 1977 until its d ...

in Australia –

in 1996–97,

Sydney United Sydney United 58 Football Club is a semi-professional soccer club and current NSW NPL Champions based in Edensor Park, Sydney, New South Wales Australia. The club was formed as Sydney Croatia in 1958, by Croatian Australians in the area, but ...

from 1997–99, and for

Northern Spirit FC North West Sydney Spirit FC is an Australian soccer club. It was the successor of the defunct Northern Spirit FC, a professional soccer club based in North Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales. Northern Spirit entered the National Soccer League in t ...

in the 1999–00 season.

Coaching career

Saad was coach at

New South Wales Premier League The National Premier Leagues NSW is a semi-professional soccer competition in New South Wales, Australia. The competition is conducted by Football NSW, the organising body in New South Wales (the other being the National Premier Leagues Norther ...

side Penrith Nepean United, and in 2009 was named as Technical Youth Director by

Sydney Olympic FC Sydney Olympic Football Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club, based in Belmore, Sydney, New South Wales, that plays in the National Premier Leagues NSW. The Club was founded as Pan-Hellenic Soccer Club in 1957 by Greek immigrant ...

. He has also been the head coach for the Australian Deaf Football team. Saad has also served as the head coach of the GIS Academy at the Garden International School in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

who unfortunately lost in the ISAC division 2 finals against fierce rivals KLASS. With Goals from Eamon and Connor as well as saves from Alex proving to be the decisive factors. Following his conviction for match-fixing in Singapore, he received a lifetime ban from the

Football Association of Singapore The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) is the governing body responsible for the administration of football in Singapore. Established in 1892 as the Singapore Football Association (SFA), it is the oldest football association in all of As ...

, but this was lifted in 2009 and he is now able to be involved in footballing activities in Singapore again.

Broadcasting career

Saad's football ban in Singapore was only lifted in March 2009 after almost 14 years. In August 2009, he began appearing as a football expert in the studios of

ESPN STAR Sports Fox Sports (formerly ESPN Star Sports) was a pan-Asian pay television network broadcasting in Asia, operated by Fox Networks Group Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) Pte. Ltd. It also oversaw a version of Sta ...

and for the

SingTel Singapore Telecommunications Limited, commonly known as Singtel, is a Singaporean telecommunications conglomerate and one of the four major telcos operating in the country. The company is the largest mobile network operator in Singapore with ...

coverage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

in Singapore, where his popularity once saw him dubbed as "The Singapore Beckham". He is also a regular studio guest for the

English Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

coverage and the FourFourTwo TV Show with the SuperSport channel on Malaysian network,

Astro Astro may refer to: Entertainment and media * Astro (South Korean band), a South Korean boy band * Astro (UB40) (1957–2021), member of the British reggae band UB40 * Astro (Chilean band), a Chilean indie rock band * Astro (Japanese band), ...

.I was convicted of match-fixing: Abbas Saad
''New Straits Times'', 7 March 2011

References

External links

at Aussie Footballers
Abbas Saad
expat profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Saad, Abbas Australian soccer players Australia international soccer players Australian expatriate soccer players Lebanese emigrants to Australia Sportspeople of Lebanese descent Expatriate footballers in Malaysia Expatriate footballers in Qatar APIA Leichhardt FC players Sydney Olympic FC players Sydney United 58 FC players Northern Spirit FC players Sydney Olympic FC managers Singapore FA players Al Sadd SC players Hakoah Sydney City East FC players 1967 births Living people Association football midfielders Qatar Stars League players People from Baalbek