CAIRO: French side Strasbourg have contacted Ahly in order to refund Hosni Abd-Rabou's transfer fee. A source inside the club said that the Red Devils received an official letter saying that Strasbourg reached an agreement with Ismaili and they want to refund the ?700,000 paid by Ahly to sign the international midfielder last year. Ismaili president Ali Yehia told Modern Sport TV that he delivered a copy of Strasbourg's new deal to the Egyptian Football Association on Tuesday. Ismaili reached a compromise with the French side to keep the 24-year midfielder and pay ?300,000 in addition to the ?500,000 paid last year. Meanwhile Ahly have threatened to go FIFA to preserve their legal rights after the player signed a four-year contract with them last season. This week, Egyptian Football Association (EFA) chairman Samir Zaher said he is determinant to solve Hosni Abd-Rabou s transfer problem for the sake of the national team. The Egypt midfielder has been embroiled in an infamous saga involving Ismaili, Ahly and French side Strasbourg since last season. This issue must be resolved, national team players should be focused on our objective to reach the World Cup, the EFA chief told FilGoal.com. We had several problems of that kind recently, and that has negatively affected our players performance in the qualifiers. Abd-Rabou s problem was followed by other domestic cases for key players like Essam Al-Hadari, Amr Zaki and most recently Hani Saied. Egypt are in danger of facing an embarrassing first-round exit from the 2010 World Cup qualifiers as they lie second after leaders DR Congo in Group 12 of the African zone.
