Imad Khalili

Breakthrough

At age five, Khalili began playing football at the local club Högaborgs BK. He made his senior debut for the side in 2002, aged 16, and attracted interest from several big clubs around Europe. He had a trial with the Scottish club Celtic FC but chose not to move abroad, on the advice of the Swedish international Henrik Larsson, who also had started his career at Högaborg. Tired of the interest surrounding him, Khalili took a one-and-a-half-year break from playing football between the summer of 2003 and the beginning of 2005. He ultimately signed a three-year deal with Helsingborgs IF in Allsvenskan. However, he had a hard time establishing himself at the club, enjoying loan spells at both Randers FC in the Danish Superliga and Bunkeflo IF in Superettan during the upcoming seasons. In December 2007, he joined IFK Norrköping on a permanent deal. The club had just won a promotion to Allsvenskan. The team struggled in the league play during the season of 2008 resulting in an immediate relegation to the second tier. Khalili would however establish himself as a key member of the squad during the following seasons, enjoying another promotion to Allsvenskan in 2010.

Top scorer

Between 2011 and 2013 he played as a regular in Allsvenskan for the club from the county of Östergötland, making 37 appearances whilst scoring 13 goals in the top tier. During the midseason of 2013 he attracted interest from his former club Helsingborgs IF, who completed the…

Imad Khalili won several caps for the Swedish under-17s, under-19s and under-21s in his younger days. In 2014, he accepted an offer to play internationally for Palestine, but withdrew from the squad due to an injury. He was eligible to play for either Palestine, UAE or Sweden at senior level.

He worked as the assistant coach of Hammarby's senior squad in both 2021 and 2022, focused on the individual development of players. In early 2023, Khalili became the head coach of their feeder team Hammarby TFF in Ettan, Sweden's third tier. He left the club on 2 July 2023, becoming the assistant coach to his former colleague Miloš Milojević at Al Wasl in the UAE Pro League.

Khalili was born in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. His parents are Palestinians from Lebanon. At a young age, the family settled in the town of Helsingborg in southern Sweden. He is the cousin of fellow professional footballer Abdul Khalili, who was part of the Sweden under-21 squad which won the 2015 European Championship. Another cousin, Moustafa Zeidan, previously played in the youth system at Aston Villa.