The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has decided to postpone Ahli's local league matches against Zamalek and Ismaili on the 8th and 15th of December respectively. The EFA took its decision upon Ahli's victory over CS Sfaxien of Tunisia, which handed the Egyptian champions their second successive African Champions League title and a ticket to Japan for the FIFA Club World Cup (CWC). Ahli's CWC campaign will conflict with the team's local league matches and based on that the EFA decided to postpone the two crucial games. “The CWC starts on December 10th and ends on the 17th, which absolutely rules out the possibility of Ahli facing Ismaili on the 15th,” EFA spokesman Medhat Shalabi told FilGoal.com on Monday. “It would also be unfair for Ahli to play against Zamalek on December 8th when their first game in Japan will be on the 10th,” he added.
Ahli, who became the first club to reach the FIFA World Cup in Japan for two successive years, will kick-off their campaign by facing The African champions play their first game against Auckland City of New Zealand in Tokyo. The winner will move on to face Internacional of Brazil. Regarding proposed dates for Ahli to play their postponed games, Shalabi said: “We should have an amended schedule for Ahli later this week.” The rescheduling will take Ahli's tally up to six matches. Ahli's matches against Petrojet, Suez Cement, Harras Al-Hodoud and ENPPI had previously been postponed for the African campaign.
