Iraqi Premier League: Kurdistan Region’s Erbil secures 3-0 win
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Erbil Sports Club secured a 3-0 victory on Wednesday against opponents Al-Semawah in the Iraqi Premier League.
Mohammed Khalid Jaffal opened the scoring in the first half with a 28th-minute strike to give his team a 1-0 half-time lead.
Jaffal doubled the Kurdistan Region club’s lead in the second half after converting his 52nd-minute penalty before the team scored a third in the 87th to seal the 3-0 win.
The win moves Erbil (9-9-11) temporarily to 11th spot in the Iraqi Premier League.
The Kurdish club’s next match is at home to Al-Hudod (7-13-9) on June 2 at 4:30 p.m. Erbil time.
One of the league’s most successful football clubs, Erbil withdrew from Iraq’s Premier League during the 2016-17 season due to financial issues.
They have been crowned Iraqi Premier League champions four times, most recently in the 2011-12 season, when they only lost one match.
Erbil is also the first club from the Iraqi league to qualify for continental club tournaments. In 2008, they qualified for the Asian Champions League but failed to progress from the group stage.
However, in Asia’s second-tier continental tournament, the AFC Cup, Erbil have finished runners-up on two occasions, in 2012 and 2014.