Saudi club takes Rajevac to court for deceiving to move to Qatar

The Saudi giants Al Ahli will take legal action against former Ghana coach Milovan Rajevac for 'deceiving’ them to take over the Qatar national team.

Ahli are demanding nearly US$2m from the Serbian coach for ‘tricking’ them to allow him to take a much more lucrative deal in neighbouring Qatar.

The 56-year-old was named as the coach of the 2022 World Cup hosts on Sunday, ending just six months with Ahli.

The Serb had rejected an extended deal with the Black Stars last year to take up the coach's job with Al Ahli last September but suddenly quit last week citing family problems.

Ahli club owner, who is a prince of the ruling Saud family in the Kingdom, says they will take legal action because Rajevac lied to them to move to Qatar.

“Al Ahli will take all the necessary legal steps to preserve the rights of the club in respect to the conduct of Milovan Rajevac,” a statement signed by Ahli chairman Prince Fahd bin Khalid read.

“We will apply for all the penalty clauses in our contract with him which will come up to about US$1.2m for breaching the contract through deceit.

“We will also collect the US$800,000 signing on fee we gave to Rajevac when we signed him on because he failed to complete his contract.

“We will pursue this through Fifa and all the legal channels available to us to ensure that he pays for his deviant actions.”

Ahli revealed that the president of the Qatar FA contacted them three weeks ago believing that Rajevac’s contract was about to end.

Prince Fahd flatly rejected the claim which prompted the Qatar football authorities to cool their interest.

But few days later after their Saudi FA Cup quarter final game, Rajevac announced that he is resigning to go and live in his home country of Serbian because of a pressure family issue.

Ahli say they pressed Rajevac to stay and offered him some weeks off to solve the problem at home but the Serbian coach rejected the compromise only to resign.

“We called an emergency meeting when Rajevac told us of his decision to resign and we made several offers to him but he rejected them all,” Prince Fahd said.

“We were in total shock to discover few days later that he had jumped ship to sign a contract in Qatar.”

Rajevac pulled a similar trick on the Ghana FA after agreeing a new deal to coach the Black Stars in September but jumped ship to take the lucrative Saudi deal.

Rajevac signed a three-year deal to become the new coach of Qatar.

Former coach Bruno Metsu was sacked following Qatar's exit at the quarter-final stage of the Asia Cup in Doha last month.

Rajevic has previously enjoyed success at international level with Ghana, who he led to the finals of the Africa Cup of Nations and to the quarter-finals of last year's World Cup.

Rajevac, who guided Ghana to the last eight of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, has been given a three-year contract beginning March 1.

His main task will be to guide Qatar through the qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

Rajevac, 56, played as a defender for Red Star Belgrade and New York Arrows before coaching several teams in his country.