Firas Al-Khatib

Early life

Al-Khatib began playing football at Al-Karamah SC, he was included in the club's categories U-14, with whom he played for two seasons. One of the most important achievements of Al Khatib with youth Al Karamah was the victory of the Republic Cup and the title of the league's top scorer twice 1994–95, 1995–96. He then went on to play for Al Karamah U-17 in 1997, where he was crowned with the league title in the same year. He also won the top scorer title. All this helped the young boy reach the youth team. During two seasons with U-19 team, he managed to win the league title and the second scorer.

Al Karamah

Al Khatib started his professional career in the Syrian Premier League with Al-Karamah in the 1999–2000 season. On 6 October 2000, he scored his first goal in the Syrian Premier League against Al-Futowa which 1–1 finished. In the 2000–01 season, he emerged as his club's top scorer, ranking joint-third overall in the league with 14 goals. During 2001, he spent two trials in Belgium; first with Gent and the second with Anderlecht.

Al Naser

In August 2002, he transferred to Kuwaiti Club Al-Naser, and played in Kuwaiti Premier League for the first time. He then moved to Al-Arabi, which also competed in the Kuwaiti Premier League.

Al Arabi

With Al-Arabi he won the Kuwait Emir Cup three times, the Kuwait Crown Prince Cup twice and the Kuwait Super Cup once. He also scored 134 goals for the club and became a legend in the club. In…

Between 2001 and 2002, Al-Khatib played for the Syrian U-17 team. He played for Syria in the AFC U-17 Championship 2002 in the United Arab Emirates and was part of the Syrian U-23 team that participated in the AFC Olympic qualification campaign for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Al-Khatib was a regular for the Syria national football team from 2001 to 2012. His international debut was at the FIFA World Cup qualification 2002, when he came on as a substitute for Khaled Al Zaher in the match against Philippine on 4 May 2001 in the Al-Hamadaniah Stadium in Aleppo. On 11 May 2001 he scored one goal in the FIFA World Cup qualification 2002 match against Laos the match was finished 9–0 for Syria. From 2012 to 2017, Al-Khatib boycotted the Syrian national football team to protest president Bashar al-Assad and his government's airstrikes against Al-Khatib's hometown of Homs. On 23 March 2017, al-Khatib re-joined Syrian national football team and expressed support for Assad. He was not included in the final squad of 2019 AFC Asian Cup after getting injured about a month before the tournament, although, he claimed that he was capable of participating if the manager called him because his injury was minor and he could be part of the second match at least. It was really disappointing to him as he mentioned many times on Bein Sports as he was one of the pundits there during the tournament. He was one of the first people who asked to sack coach Bernd Stange after the loss against Jordan. In an…

In 2019–20, Al Khatib became an assistant coach at Al-Salmiya. In June 2021, he was appointed as the head coach of his hometown club Al Karamah. A few days later, Al-Khatib refrained for Al Karama coaching due to "family circumstances". Subsequently, he was appointed as an assistant coach at Al-Naser. In April 2022, Firas became the coach of the Iraqi club Zakho. Three months later, in July 2022, Firas returned to Kuwait as coach of Al-Fahaheel. In May 2024, he extended his contract with the latter until 2025.

Al-Khatib, the youngest of 12 siblings, revealed that he is of Egyptian origin, from al-Sha'rawi family, in which his ancestor came to and settled in Mahin, during the Ibrahim Pasha campaign. One of his grandfathers was renamed to Al-Khatib as he worked as an imam. He is married and has 6 children.