Tunisian commentator Issam Chawali has become the most interactive hashtag on the social networking site “Twitter”, following mass calls for his dismissal.
Al-Shawali was commenting on the Charity Shield match, last Saturday, which brought together Manchester City and Liverpool, through the Qatari “BN Sports” network, but he received widespread criticism.
Many fans expressed their anger at the Tunisian commentator’s bias once morest Manchester City, and launched a tag entitled: The dismissal of Essam Shawali to top the list of Twitter trends in Saudi Arabia.
And the fans expressed their dissatisfaction with the way Shawali commented on the Manchester City matches, especially since what happened in the Liverpool match was not the first time.
Some saw that the Tunisian commentator deliberately underestimated the heavenly team, despite the fact that it was the best in England over the past years, especially since the arrival of Spanish coach Pep Guardiola in 2016, where he won the English Premier League title 4 times out of 6.
Majed Al-Murshidi, the former Saudi star of Al-Hilal, criticized Al-Shawali, and said in statements carried by Saudi media: “Who is Al-Shawali to establish a club the size of Manchester City? You are only selling words, nothing more, nothing less to the listener and viewer. The match does not differentiate with me and I did not give any importance to it.”
He added, “The match was on the charitable shield, and it annoyed us, Issam El Shawali, with your personalization of things with Manchester City, and not only this match, but I follow him and he always underestimates City.”
Interestingly, the campaign is still going on on Twitter, even though the match ended last Saturday night.