Mahmoud Mohamad El Ali (; born 4 March 1984) is a Lebanese former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who played as a striker. El Ali represented the Lebanon national team, scoring 12 goals in 46 games, before being banned for life from professional football due to his involvement in the 2013 Lebanese match fixing scandal.

Club career

El Ali began his senior career at

Lebanese Premier League The Lebanese First Division (), commonly known as the Lebanese Premier League (), is the top division of the Lebanese football league system. Established in 1934 and organized by the Lebanese Football Association (LFA), the Lebanese Premier Leagu ...

club Rayyan, during the 2004–05 season. The forward scored five goals. In 2005 El Ali moved to Ahed, scoring four goals and helping his side finish in fifth place during the 2005–06 season. The following season ( 2006–07), El Ali improved on his previous season's numbers, scoring 12 goals. However, Ahed finished in fifth place once again. In 2007–08, El Ali helped his side win their first league title, scoring three goals. The following three seasons, El Ali lifted two more league titles ( 2009–10 and

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

), two

Lebanese FA Cup The Lebanon Cup (), commonly known as the Lebanese FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in domestic Lebanese football. In the first FA Cup final, held on 26 June 1938, Nahda beat Hilmi-Sport 3–2 in the replay (after drawing 1� ...

s ( 2008–09 and

), three

Lebanese Elite Cup The Lebanese Elite Cup () was a Lebanese football annual cup competition contested by the top six teams of the previous Lebanese Premier League season. Founded in 1996 as the Super League Cup, the first edition was played by the top five finisher ...

s (

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

, and

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

), and three

Lebanese Super Cup The Lebanese Super Cup () is Lebanese football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous Lebanese Premier League season and the holders of the Lebanese FA Cup. If the Lebanese Premier League champions also won the Lebanese FA ...

s (2008, 2010, 2011). The forward was also part of the

Lebanese Premier League Team of the Season The Al-Manar Football Festival () was an event organised by the Al-Manar television station between the 1996–97 and 2018–19 seasons in order to award players, managers, referees and teams who were considered to have performed the best over ...

for two consecutive seasons, in 2010–11 and 2011–12. In January 2013, El Ali moved to Indonesian Liga 1 side

Persiba Balikpapan Persatuan Sepakbola Indonesia Balikpapan, commonly known as Persiba Balikpapan, is a professional football club based in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. The club set to play in the Liga 2 from 2025–26, after promotion from Liga Nusant ...

. He scored three goals in 16 league games. On 26 February 2013, El Ali was accused of illegal betting on several national and continental games concerning Lebanese teams and the

national team A national sports team (commonly known as a national team or a national side) is a team that represents a nation, rather than a particular club or region, in an international sport. The term is most commonly associated with team sports, for exa ...

. He was banned for life from football and was fined $15,000. Following El Ali's involvement in the 2013 Lebanese match-fixing scandal, on 26 April 2013, Persiba Balikpapan terminated El Ali's contract with the club.

International career

El Ali made his international debut for

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

16 June 2007, at the

2007 WAFF Championship The 2007 West Asian Football Federation Championship was held in Jordan's capital Amman. Iran won the final against Iraq 2–1. The 6 entrants were Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and host nation Jordan. The finals took place between 16 a ...

, against

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

; Lebanon lost 1–0. The Lebanese forward's first international goal came on 23 September 2007, in a friendly against the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

(UAE); the match finished in a 1–1 draw. On 17 July 2011, El Ali scored his first, and only, international

brace Brace (formerly known as ''Brace For War'') was an Australian mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. Brace was founded in 2005 by Kya Pate. In an interview with MMA Kanvas Kya Pate detailed what it is like to be the promoter of Australian MMA. Si ...

; he scored twice against the UAE in a friendly. In 2013, El Ali was accused of

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing (also known as game fixing, race fixing, throwing, rigging, hippodroming, or more generally sports fixing) is the act of playing or officiating a contest with the intention of achieving a predetermined result, v ...

2014 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA#Structure, FIFA confederations. The 2014 FIFA World Cup featured 32 teams, with one place reserved for the host nation, Brazil national football team, Bra ...

game against

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

, on 14 November 2012, purposely throwing the match in the opponents favour. Lebanon lost 1–0. Following the investigations, on 24 April 2013 El Ali was banned for life from the sport. El Ali retired with 12 goals in 46 appearances for the national team.

Career statistics

International

Honours

Ahed *

: 2007–08, 2009–10,

: 2008–09,

: 2008, 2010, 2011 Individual *

: 2006–07, 2007–08, 2010–11, 2011–12

References

External links

*
Mahmoud El Ali
at

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ali, Mahmoud 1984 births Living people People from Akkar Governorate Lebanese men's footballers 21st-century Lebanese sportsmen Men's association football forwards Al Rayyan SC Beirut players Al Ahed FC players Persiba Balikpapan players Lebanese Premier League players Liga 1 (Indonesia) players Lebanon men's international footballers Lebanese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Indonesia Lebanese expatriate sportspeople in Indonesia Match fixers Sportspeople banned for life