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Foreign Media: "Players Deeply Shocked by This Incident"

An absurd incident occurred in Saudi Arabia's professional football league where a spectator whipped a player who lost the match.

Foreign media including Al Jazeera Sports reported on the incident that took place immediately after the Saudi Professional League Super Cup final held on the 11th (local time) at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in the United Arab Emirates. Last season's champion Al Ittihad consistently showed lackluster performance and suffered a crushing 1-4 defeat to their rival Al Hilal.

On the 11th (local time), the Al Hilal team celebrated their victory after defeating Al Ittihad 4-1 in the Saudi Professional League Super Cup final held at the Mohammed bin Zayed Stadium in the United Arab Emirates. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Al Ittihad brought in former French national team player Karim Benzema (36) last year with a salary of 200 million euros (approximately 294.8 billion KRW), and also signed numerous superstars such as N'Golo Kant? and Fabinho. However, their recent performances have consistently fallen short of expectations, disappointing fans. Al Ittihad currently sits in 4th place, trailing 30 points behind 1st place Al Hilal.

Video footage of the situation shows fans in the Al Ittihad stands loudly jeering and booing after the match ended. In response, Abderrazak Hamdallah (34), a forward from Monaco, sprayed water from a bottle he was holding toward the fans who were criticizing him as he was moving through the players' tunnel, provoking them.

Immediately after the match, a male spectator is swinging a whip at Abdelrazak Hamdallah (right). [Image source=Captured from X (formerly Twitter)]

Then, a man dressed in traditional Islamic attire near the railing of the stands suddenly took out a whip and swung it at Hamdallah. Hamdallah, struck by the whip, became enraged and charged at the man, who swung the whip again. Teammates and team staff rushed over to restrain Hamdallah, and the man holding the whip was also stopped by other spectators, bringing the situation to a temporary close.

The spectator who whipped Hamdallah was reportedly arrested by local police. The British Daily Record reported, "This incident caused great shock to the Al Ittihad players."