DUBAI // Al Ahli chairman Abdullah Al Naboodah says he is confident Cosmin Olaroiu will continue at the club next season.
The Romanian's future has been the subject of significant speculation since Ahli clinched the Arabian Gulf League title late last month, when Olaroiu implied after their penultimate league match that he would not stay at the Rashid Stadium for much longer. Only moments before, he had been sent to the stands towards the conclusion of the 2-2 draw with Baniyas.
Then last Friday, Olaroiu suggested at a pre-match media briefing that sections of the club were not satisfied with his work, although he denied he had spoken to any potential employers about managing elsewhere. The former Al Ain coach has been linked with the Romania national team and to clubs in Saudi Arabia and China.
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Having signed an extension last summer, Olaroiu’s contract at Ahli runs until 2018. Since agreeing to the new deal, he has guided the club to a second league title in three seasons and to the final of the Asian Champions League. On Friday, Ahli contest the President’s Cup quarter-final against Al Shaab.
Asked following Sunday’s league campaign-concluding victory against the same opposition if he expected Olaroiu to remain at Ahli, Al Naboodah said that he did “absolutely”, although he confirmed there does exist a problem between the coach and someone at the club.
“I’ve seen [Friday’s] press conference and I’d leave him to answer that, because I know who he’s talking about, but I don’t want to say,” said Al Naboodah, who clarified that he was not the person in question.
“The club position won’t change. Our reply was always that with Cosmin we have a two-year contract and that is what we are relying on in terms of the relationship between Cosmin and the club.
“In the past, not the last press conference but the one before, I think the comments the coach made weren’t understood by a lot of people, but he explained in the second that ‘it’s not about me leaving Al Ahli, it’s about other reasons’.
“I’ll leave the reasons for him to answer. It’s not my place to answer, but there are other reasons for him to complain about, which we don’t know what they are. But in terms of the contract, we are with the coach for the remainder of that.”
Al Naboodah said there are no emergency talks planned with Olaroiu, and that the two parties will sit together once the President’s Cup finishes later this month to discuss strategies to improve the team for next season, as the club and coach always do each year.
That includes a return to the Champions League, with Ahli attempting to go one better than last year. Competing in the knockout stages for the first time, the Dubai club became only the second UAE side to reach the final, but lost 1-0 on aggregate to China’s Guangzhou Evergrande.
Al Naboodah said the continental competition now assumes priority.
“If I look back a few years ago, for me the big, big challenge to overcome was the Champions League and it was a dream that I really wanted to happen,” he said. “Going back to that, after reaching the final and seeing how we compete in Asia and in the Champions League, I thought it’s not a dream any more, it’s actually a target now.
“And if the league comes on the way of winning the Champions League, then so be it. But definitely the target is to win the Champions League. We’ve reached the final and I think we can do it another time.
“We need to improve; it’s very important for us to improve. If you want to win the Champions League, you need to be a little bit better. Not much, because we ended up just 1-0 down after two legs. Just a little bit of improvement and maybe we turn that into 2-0 to us.”
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