The Egyptian football club announced on Monday that striker Zaher would be excluded from next month’s Fifa Club World Cup held in Morocco, as a punishment for giving a four-finger salute during the match, AFP reported.
The 28-year-old forward held up to his chest four fingers, while celebrating his second goal in a 2-0 win over South Africa's Orlando Pirates in the final of the African Champions League in Cairo, on November 10.
The four-finger gesture, called Raba’a (four) in Arabic is used by supporters of the ousted President Mohamed Morsi, as a symbol of solidarity with him.
The sign also commemorates the massacre of hundreds of supporters of Muslim Brotherhood during the Egyptian army’s deadly crackdown on pro-Morsi sit-ins at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque in Cairo, in August.
About 1,000 people were killed after the government of army-appointed interim President Adly ordered a fierce clampdown on Morsi supporters’ protest camps on August 14.
Ahmaed Abdel-Zaher’s suspension comes after Egypt's Kung Fu Association banned Kung Fu champion Mohamed Youssef from international championships for two years for wearing a T-shirt bearing the sign of Raba’a at a tournament in Russia, in October.
"We expect the club's board and the Egyptian Football Federation to take action against the player and suspend and fine Abdel-Zaher the way Kung Fu fighter Mohamed Youssef was," Egypt's Minister of State for Sport, Taher Abu Zeid said in a statement on Monday.
There has been a surge in crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood group since the ouster of the first democratically elected President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, who is a Muslim Brotherhood member, early in July.
On July 3, the head of the Egyptian armed forces General Fattah al-Sisi toppled Mohamed Morsi in a “military coup,” suspended the constitution and dissolved the parliament. On the following day, he appointed the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Adly Mahmoud Mansour, as the new interim president.