Muhammad Shariff bin Abdul Samat (5 January 1984 – 10 February 2020) was a Singaporean international
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 ...
.
Shariff is the son of former Singaporean international
Samad Allapitchay
Samad Allapitchay (born 1950) is a former Singapore national football team captain who played for National Football League sides Geylang International and Tampines Rovers, and the Singapore Lions in the Malaysia Cup as a centre-back.
Samad was ...
and like his father, he usually played as a
centre-back
In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring.
Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...
Tampines Rovers FC
Tampines Rovers Football Club is a professional football club based in Tampines, Singapore, that competes in the Singapore Premier League, the top tier of Singapore football league system. Founded in 1945, the club have won the national leagu ...
.
He was brought into the Tampines Rovers squad from the Young Lions after a stint with Sembawang Rangers FC, largely as a back-up player for the 2007/2008 highlighting season. However, due to teammate Sead Muratovic's failure to pass the annual fitness test, he became a major part of the first team's fixture in the S-League. He then joined Home United FC in 2010.
He was also known as a hot-tempered player, and was once handed out an eight-month ban by the
Football Association of Singapore
The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) is the governing body responsible for the administration of football in Singapore. Established in 1892 as the Singapore Football Association (SFA), it is the oldest football association in all of A ...
Admiralty FC
Admiralty Football Club, also commonly known as Admiralty FC, is a football club which plays in the Division 2 of the Singapore Football League, the third tier of football in Singapore.
History
Admiralty FC started off in 1987 as a participan ...
during the first half of 2012, and it was announced that he would rejoin S.League side Tampines Rovers for the second half of their 2012 season. However, he failed to break into the squad and was released at the end of the season.
On 2 February 2013, Shariff was unveiled as a Woodlands Wellington player during the team's pre-season fanfare.
He made his debut for the
Rams
In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)Home United FC. Shariff put in an outstanding performance against the Protectors, his clearance off the line of
Masato Fukui
is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a striker for Albanian club Kamza.
Club career Gainare Tottori
In 2011, he joined Gainare Tottori in J2 League, on 6 March 2011 he made his first appearance for the team.
Home United
In 2013 ...
's shot being heralded as the turning point of the game by Woodlands coach, Salim Moin, during the post-match conference.
Shariff rejoined Tampines for the 2014 season, but was not retained for the 2015 season and played for another NFL side Singapore Recreation Club that year. He then was signed by Geylang International for the 2016 season, but was released at the end of the season.
International career
In 2008, under Radojko Avramović, Shariff was called up for the matches against
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...
,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at ...
. However, he did not play in all of them.
In 2013, Shariff was called up by Bernd Stange because of his impressive performances for Woodlands Wellington in the S.League. He made his international debut on 4 June 2013, coming on as a substitute against
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
in a friendly match in
Yangon
Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...
.
Personal life and death
On 31 May 2001, Shariff, then 17 years old, encountered the 8-member gang 369, known as
Salakau
Salakau ( zh, s=三六九, poj=Saⁿ-la̍k-káu), which means 369 in Hokkien, also known as "Sah Lak Kau", is a street gang or secret society based in Singapore. The numbers 3, 6 and 9 add up to 18, which was the name of an older gang; the nu ...
, who attacked him and his two other friends while they were walking along South Bridge Road, having mistook them as members of their rival gang Sakongsa (303). The gang killed one of his friends, then-17-year-old football player
Sulaiman bin Hashim
On the early morning of 31 May 2001, 17-year-old national footballer Sulaiman bin Hashim (4 June 1983 – 31 May 2001), along with his two friends were attacked by a group of eight youths from gang 369, known as Salakau, as they were walking a ...
(with whom Shariff was close to). During the attack, Shariff, who was named Muhammad Shariff bin Abdul Samat in court documents at that time, was stabbed on the back but survived. Despite being stabbed, Shariff managed to escape to the nearest police station with his other friend (another footballer, Mohammed Imran bin Mohammed Ali) to inform the police. He was hospitalised and later discharged on 2 June 2001. Six of the attackers were eventually arrested, jailed and caned for rioting and culpable homicide, but the remaining two assailants remain at large till this day. The case was re-enacted in local crime show ''
True Files
''True Files'' ( Chinese: 真实档案) is an English language television docu-drama telecast on MediaCorp Channel 5, with each episode (except the last episode of Season 3, ''The Unsolved'') re-enacting major court proceedings, mostly of murder, ...
'', which features the death of Sulaiman and the murder trial of the Salakau gang members. Shariff, a survivor and witness of the attack, was portrayed by actor A.L. Imran. He was addressed solely by his given name in the episode to protect his real identity.
On 10 November 2015, Shariff assaulted his brother-in-law over an incident. He later pleaded guilty to voluntarily causing hurt to his brother-in-law and on 24 May 2016, he was sentenced to 2 weeks' imprisonment. The crime he was found guilty of would have led to him jailed up to two years and fined $5,000.
On 10 February 2020, Shariff died of a heart attack at the age of 36, leaving behind a wife and 4-year-old daughter.