Al-Saadi Gaddafi

Club career

Gaddafi is known for his participation in Libyan football, which was arranged in his favor. One law forbade announcing the name of any player with the exception of Gaddafi. Only numbers of other players were announced. Referees favored Gaddafi's club and security forces were used to silence protests. He played for Al-Ahly Tripoli between 1997 and 2000, and Al-Ittihad Tripoli between 2001 and 2003. On 6 June 2000, the BBC reported that Gaddafi had signed with Maltese champions Bikirkara and would play for them in the Champions League. The move failed to materialize. In 2003, he signed for Serie A team Perugia, employing Diego Maradona as his technical consultant and Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson as his personal trainer. He made only one substitute appearance for Perugia against Juventus, before failing a drug test, due to presence in his system of the illegal substance Nandrolone. An article in la Repubblica said that "Even at twice his current speed he would still be twice as slow as slow itself." Gaddafi joined UEFA Champions League qualifiers Udinese in 2005–06, playing only 10 minutes in an end-of-season league match against Cagliari. He joined Sampdoria during the 2006–07 season, without playing a single match.

International career

He was captain of the Libya national team, captain of his home club in Tripoli, and president of the Libyan Football Federation. He debuted for Libya on 28 January 2001 during the 3–1 loss against Angola in 2002…

International

Gaddafi is married to the daughter of al-Khweildi al-Hmeidi, a Libyan military commander who was involved in the 1969 Libyan coup d'état that brought Gaddafi to power. In 2009, a U.S. diplomatic cable called Gaddafi "the black sheep" of Muammar Gaddafi's family. It mentioned scuffles with European police, "abuse of drugs and alcohol, excessive partying" and "profligate affairs with women and men". Gaddafi's bisexuality had partly prompted the arrangement of his marriage to the commander's daughter, the cable said. Saadi was having a relationship with Bulgarian national Dafinka Mircheva. After the Battle of Tripoli in 2011, Saadi's former teammate at Al Ahly Tripoli and close friend, Reda Al Tawarghi, alleged that Saadi had jailed him for 2+1⁄2 years for rejecting his "homosexual advances".