DOHA: Qatar Stars League’s defending champion Lekhwiya announced yesterday that Michael Laudrup (pictured) will take over as coach with immediate effect.
The Dane has been out of a job since he was sacked at Swansea in the English Premier League in February.
The club, previously coached by Belgian Eric Gerets, said on their official website that details of his contract would be announced at a later date.
Gerets guided Lekhwiya to the QSl title but the team’s failure to qualify for the last sixteen stage of the AFC Champions League cost the Belgian former international his job.
Laudrap, the former Barcelona and Real Madrid midfielder, admitted he may look for a challenge beyond football management when his deal with Lekhwiya expires.
Laudrup, who also played for Juventus and Ajax during a glittering career told Danish newspaper Politiken: “I’m now entering my final phase as a coach.
“Although whether Lekhwiya will be my final or penultimate club I can’t say.
“And I don’t know either whether this phase while last two, three of four years. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
Besides last year’s QSL title the club also won the title twice before in the 2012-11 and 2011-10 season under coach Djemal Belmadi.
Meanwhile there have been a lot of player transfers between QSL clubs for the last two months.
The pace has slackened in thelast few weeks with the 2014 World Cup underway in Brazil.
It would be no surprise to see the majority of the big name signings taking place after the tournament has finished.
El Jaish has made a lot of loan deals to Umm Salal this summer, with most of them being local Qatari players.
Rami Fawez, Mohammed Jeddo and Thamer Jamal, Murad Naji and Dheyab Al-Annabi all went from El Jaish to Umm Salal so far.
Going in the opposite direction Mosaab Mahmoud and Mahir Yousef returned from Umm Salal to El Jaish and Yasser Abou Baker returned from Al Sailiya to El Jaish as well.
The defenders Khalid Nawaf, Aden Ali and Amded Nahawi have all sought transfers to Al Arabi and Nasser Nabil the right winger will also continue for another season with the dream team.
Abdulaziz Al Yahri, Hassan Al Qadi and Mohammed El Hadj have been transferred to Al Ahli and Moath Yousuf the left winger shifted from Al Sailiya to Al Wakrah.
Striker Mohammed Razak has returned to Lekhwiya from Al Arabi and Hussain Ali Shehab too went back to the 2014 champions after a season at Umm Salal.
The spotlight is now on Al Rayyan who has a lot of young players with a number of clubs interested in them.
The struggle for the lions now will be to persuade most of their young squad not to disband from the recently relegated outfit, if the club has any hopes of a quick promotion back to the top division in Qatar. AFP/The Peninsula
