Former captain Gaddafi won’t be missed, Libya goalkeeper says

Dubai: Libyan national team goalkeeper Samir Aboud has told Gulf News he won't miss his former captain Al Saadi Gaddafi, who fled to Niger in the wake of his father Muammar's demise amid the country's revolution.

"He's not a football player anyhow — it's just the conditions and atmosphere which allowed him to play his football for Libya," said former teammate Aboud before Tuesday's all-star charity match for the Friends of Libya's Children at Al Ahli Stadium in Dubai. Al Saadi played for the Libyan national team, Al Ahly Tripoli and Al Ittihad Tripoli before some suspect moves to Italy's Perugia, Udinese and Sampdoria, which didn't involve much in the way of playing football.

New beginning

Aboud, 39, on the other hand is a veteran of nine league wins, six cup and ten super cup titles in Libya, all with Al Ittihad — he's also the third current most capped on 39 appearances.

"The Gaddafi Regime was one of the key reasons for the decline of football in Libya," added Aboud. But qualifying for the 2012 African Nations with a 1-0 win over Mozambique in September and a 0-0 draw with Zambia last month, even as civil war raged back home, has heralded a new beginning for Libya and its football team.

"For sure what happened in Libya from the beginning, even how the players saw their people suffering and given what we had all lost in the conflict — it definitely gave us that extra push for the results which took us to the African Nations," he said.