Abdoulaye Seck's four seasons at Maccabi Haifa ended quietly on June 30, when his contract simply expired. His arrival at his next club has made more noise than his exit did — not for what was said, but for what wasn't.
The 34-year-old Senegalese centre-back has signed for Al-Faisaly, the Saudi Pro League club promoted to the top flight last season, ONE reports. He joins as a free agent after weeks of searching for his next destination once his Haifa deal ran out.
Al-Faisaly marked the signing with the kind of welcome post clubs typically use to introduce a new arrival, running through the stops of Seck's career to date. According to ONE, one club was conspicuously left off that list: Maccabi Haifa, the team he had just spent four years with.
ONE frames the omission as no accident, suggesting it reflects the strained political relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel rather than any oversight. Al-Faisaly has not issued a separate statement addressing the gap, and the suggestion should be read as ONE's own reading of the announcement rather than a confirmed club position.
It is a curious footnote to what was, by any football measure, a substantial spell in Israel. Seck arrived in Haifa in 2022 from Belgian side Royal Antwerp and quickly became a fixture at the back.
Across four seasons he made 147 appearances for Maccabi Haifa, scoring 14 goals and adding five assists — a heavy return for a defender.
The trophy haul backs up the numbers: an Israeli championship, a Toto Cup, and European nights that took Haifa into the Champions League group stage and as far as the round of 16 in the Conference League.
Seck's profile away from Haifa is well established too. He was part of Senegal's squad that won the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, the country's first-ever continental title, and has continued to be a regular for the national team since.
For Al-Faisaly, newly promoted and building a squad for life in Saudi Arabia's top division, Seck's experience and pedigree are the obvious appeal. For Haifa, it is simply the end of an era at centre-back — one that, on the evidence of his new club's own announcement, its opponents in Saudi Arabia would rather not be reminded of.
