Infrequently you can meet professional athletes of royal blood. In Libya, there is a unique football player named Gaddafi Saadi, the son of Muammar Gaddafi.
About family
Every state always has a ruler. Libya was no exception. For 22 years, Muammar Gaddafi ruled the country . He was married twice, and eight children were born from these marriages. The first son, Muhamad Gaddafi, was born in 1970 from his first marriage with a school teacher, who was fleeting, and after the birth of his son, Muammar divorced his first wife. In the same year, the Libyan leader will marry a second time to nurse Safia Farkash. From this marriage, Gaddafi had seven children, sons: Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, Saadi Gaddafi, Ganibal Muammar Gaddafi, Mutazim Bila Gaddafi, Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi , Khamis Gaddafi, and daughter Aisha Gaddafi. He also had two adopted children - his nephew Milad Abuztaya Gaddafi and daughter Hannah. All the children of Gaddafi received a good education and at the time of the reign of their father held high leadership positions in the country. Most of them were officers of the Libyan army.
President of the Football Federation
Ironically, the third-born Saadi was not like all his relatives. While his brothers and sisters studied, made careers of the military, officials and oil traders, the third son of Gaddafi Saadi watched football all day. The Italian championship brought him the greatest delight. Having seen the games of the stars of that time, Gaddafi Saadi, the son of Mummar Gaddafi, could afford the rest of the day to chase the ball in his personal stadium near the house. However, the father, who provided him with all this, did not share his passion for football, he wanted his son to hold a high state post, like his brothers. But Saadi showed no interest in this. Therefore, his father had no choice but to appoint him the head of the Libyan Football Federation. So Gaddafi Saadi became the newly-minted head of Libyan football.
Al-Ahly Fights for Championship
By the age of 27, Saadi Gaddafi began to realize his childhood dream - to become a professional player. Libya has never been a football country, and the Libyan championship was of little interest to anyone. Therefore, after negotiations with his father, Saadi Gaddafi begins to intensively develop this sport in his country. At the same time satisfying his gaming ambitions, he becomes a football player of Al-Ahly club. Maybe this team didn’t really need to strengthen the position of the striker in the person of the president of the football association, but once the president ordered, then it is necessary. Unique case! So he becomes the president of the football federation and the player in one person Saadi Gaddafi. Photos with the son of the ruler were then in all the newspapers.
I would especially like to note how the matches were held with the participation of the son of the ruler of Libya. There were always many bodyguards around the player who accompanied him everywhere. Along the perimeter of the field were soldiers armed with machine guns, and on each rostrum there were several snipers. As soon as Saadi had no protection on the field.
Now, Saadi Gaddafi, a football player, wanted trophies and medals. He decided to start with the championship of his country. And Al-Ahly begins to fight for the championship with might and main, and the football president, who scored 3 goals in 24 matches of the 2000-2001 season, helps him in this. The apogee of this season was the final match, by winning which Al-Ahli could become the champion in case of victory over Al-Ittihad. In that confrontation, a penalty was awarded, a goal from which could bring victory to the team of Saadi Gaddafi, but history knows many examples where players in simple situations do not score the most important goal in the championship, or maybe even in their life. So it happened with Saadi. Gaddafi missed, did not score, and the team still could not win. Bottom line: well-deserved second place in the 2000-2001 season. But still, the dream of trophies began to come true a little, and with Al-Ahli, Saadi Gaddafi won the Libyan Cup and Super Cup.
In the future, experts noted that as a football player Saadi was not very good. He did not have any specific talents, and he did not have good physical fitness. However, he immediately became a full-time penalty kick player and a specialist in penalties.
Famous specialists in technical and physical training
After playing in Al-Ahli, Saadi thought about improving his striker skills. And it didn’t come to his mind to hire personal instructors to help him hone his technical skills and raise his speed and endurance to a new level. Without thinking twice, Saadi Gaddafi chose the famous Diego Maradona and former Canadian athlete Ben Johnson as his teacher . In parallel, Saadi moved to Al Ittihad.
Classes with experienced instructors yielded results, and Saadi Gaddafi improved his scorer statistics by scoring 19 goals in the 2001-2002 season, and finally won the Libyan championship. Thus, he became the top scorer of the season. In total, Al-Ittihad club played 70 matches and scored 20 times in them. In the 2002-2003 season, Al-Ittihad wins the championship again and wins the Libyan Super Cup.
Starting to score, Saadi Gaddafi hinted to the coach of the national team of Libya that he is a good gain for the team. It's time to try it out on the international stage. The coach did not particularly resist, called Gaddafi Jr. to the team and appointed him team captain.
Birkirkara
Being ambitious, Saadi Gaddafi decides that it is time for him to fight for European trophies. And in 2003 he made the transition to the Maltese football club Birkirkara. Without playing a single match, Saadi Gaddafi moves to Italy.
Here Saadi unleashed all human vices. A lot of alcohol, drugs and erratic relationships, all this led to a violation of the sports regime and deterioration of physical fitness. It is no secret to anyone that even if a football player with a capital letter began to lead such a lifestyle, he would quickly lose his strength, and Saadi, apparently, there was already nothing to lose.
Before the European tour began, he organized the Italian Super Cup in Tripoli in 2002. The Italian Football Federation received generous fees from this event. Saadi also met Silvio Berlusconi.
Saadi's investment in football clubs
In addition, Gaddafi acquires the shares of several Italian football clubs, such as Juventus and Triestina. And it is already starting to build its assets in this area. At Juventus, Saadi knocked out his place on the board of directors. And there was even a rumor about his transfer to the "old lord", but, apparently, it was beyond the power of Gaddafi. It is also known about an attempt to acquire Lazio shares - in the future, Saadi Gaddafi himself will abandon this idea. He failed to acquire shares of the English football grandees Manchester United and Liverpool, and the Greek PAOK did not become the property of Gaddafi Saadi. After an unsuccessful career in Malta, a long ordeal brought the captain of the Libyan national team to the modest Perugia.
Probably, then Saadi Gaddafi was the happiest in the world, finally the dream of his whole life should have come true - his debut in “Serie A”. But here there were some difficulties. Saadi Gaddafi is caught in doping in 2003. He passed the test after the match, in which he was a substitute and did not even take part. The management of the team said that Saadi was taking a prohibited drug to get rid of back pain. But this was not convinced by the doping commission, and Saadi Gaddafi was assigned 3 months of disqualification. After serving the removal, the player entered the field as part of Perugia once, fulfilling his childhood dream.
Udinese
In 2005, Saadi Gaddafi moved to Udinese, who fought for the right to play in European competitions, where he met a coach who worked with him in Perugia. Starting the season on the bench, Gaddafi announces the end of the career of a professional player in connection with the fact that he should head the secret service in his homeland. But either the passion for football, or the lack of leadership skills forced the son of the ruler of Libya to return to football. And 3 months after leaving, Saadi continued his career in Udinese. He did not go on the field until the last match of the 2005-2006 season championship, in which his coach still released him in the last 10 minutes of the game.
Sampdoria
The next team of the Libyan football player was Sampdoria, whose owner dreamed of building an oil business in Libya. Saadi has never entered the field with the Genoese. Apparently, the negotiations did not lead to anything. Saadi Gaddafi was already 34 years old, the age at which many football players are already beginning to think about ending their careers, so the son of the ruler of Libya decided so. Realizing that his football achievements were more than modest, he decided to end his sports career.
Life without football
Returning to his homeland, Gaddafi Saadi returned to his former job as the head of the football federation. In parallel, he began to engage in business, which never brought him anything but losses. In the meantime, a civil war broke out in the country, and the entire opposition took up arms against Saadi. He was charged with the murder of a formerly known footballer and coach Al-Riadi, which happened during his game for Udinese. Al-Riadi has been unflattering in the past about Saadi’s playing skills and skeptical about his father’s regime. He disappeared in 2005, and was later found dead.
The former football player Gaddafi Saadi hit the pencil with the international police in 2011, when he gave orders to severely suppress the uprising in Benghazi. In addition, he was also charged with misappropriation of property of the football federation and fraud on an especially large scale.
After the death of his father, the former Libyan football player Saadi Gaddafi fled to Niger, where he lived for several years. After all the charges against him, he was brought to trial by the new Libyan authorities. At the moment, together with his brothers, is in a Libyan prison and is awaiting sentence.