كتب : Sherif Tarek
The White Knights' official website had earlier announced the youngster took no part in Thursday's training session because he was physiologically affected by a spat with security officials.
Later on, he revealed further details about the unfortunate incident, saying some policemen severely assaulted him for absolutely no reason.
"I was on my way to the loge at Arab Contractors Stadium, but some policemen prevented me from taking a seat," Al-Merghani, who was excluded from the game due to suspension, told FilGoal.com.
"I phoned up public relations manager Ashraf Abdul-Moati to sort things out, and he asked me to hand the phone to one of the security men, but they refused to talk to him.
"He then gave me the number of the stadium manager, but when I called him I found that he's not willing to help me."
Al-Merghani stated that he got jumped by the policemen when he stood up for his friend, who was also insulted.
"One of the officers asked my companion 'who are you?', so he told him that he's a friend of mine, then the policeman cursed both of us," he narrated.
"Not only did he swear at us, but at my mother as well. When I blamed him for his misbehavior he slapped me, and more than a dozen of security men started to hit me pretty badly."
Passive Role
What made Al-Merghani more frustrated is the 'passive role' of the Zamalek board members who witnessed the incident and did nothing to punish the culprits.
"Board members Ahmed Al-Bakri, Mohamed Ibrahim, Abdullah George and Alaa Mekled eventually interfered, and tried to bring about reconciliation between me and the cop who assaulted me," he said.
"But I refused to just forget about the physical and physiological damages he caused me."
However, Al-Merghani alleged one of Zamalek's officials tricked him into signing a document of reconciliation.
"While I was shouting and ranting, a board member approached me with a piece of paper and asked me to put my signature to it, saying it will enable them to take the proper legal actions against those who beat me," he elaborated.
"I did as I was told without reading it because I trusted him, but I found out later that this paper is a document of reconciliation.
"The very people who are supposed to defend their players left me high and dry just because they didn't want to escalate the problem."