SOULEYMANE Coulibaly has at last been given permission to play for Partick Thistle two months after he joined the club.
After a frustrating time for the player, FIFA granted a temporary International Transfer Certificate (ITC) which allowed the Ivory Coast striker's registration with the SFA to be completed.
Coulibaly walked out on Egyptian side in Ahly in May 2017, citing fears for his safety, just four months after moving from Kilmarnock in a £800,000 deal.
He has been unable to play football since.
Al Ahly refused to release his registration and the 23-year-old was fined almost $1.5m by FIFA, which was to be awarded to the Egyptian giants.
And when he signed for Thistle in August, the Egyptian FA turned down an international clearance request, which is when the SFA stepped in.
Coulibaly said: “I am absolutely delighted to be allowed to play football again and I cannot wait to get back on the pitch.
"It has been a very difficult time for me but I just need to put that behind me now and concentrate on playing the game that I love. I haven’t played a proper match in quite some time now so I know there is still a lot of hard work to do before I will be back to my best but I am determined that I will get there.
“I would like to thank the club for all the support and I hope to be able to repay some of the faith they have shown in me as soon as possible.”
Alan Archibald will be thankful this saga has come to an end and could give Coulibaly his debut against Championship leaders Ross County who travel to Firhill on Saturday.
Coulibaly was a cult hero at Kilmarnock where he scored some spectacular goals - he got 11 in 26 games - before moving to Egypt.
Partick Thistle Chief Executive, Gerry Britton, in a statement said: “It’s great news and we are ecstatic to finally get Souleymane properly registered to play with Partick Thistle Football Club.
"He has obviously been through a tough time recently and, having spoken to him on numerous occasions since he first arrived at the club, I know he is simply desperate to get back playing football.
"It has been a long road and a lot of hard work but I would like to thank the Scottish FA for its assistance in the process and hopefully Souleymane can go on to have a very successful season as a Thistle player.”
Coulibaly moved to Italy with his family at 13 and was signed by Tottenham after winning the Golden Boot award for being top goalscorer at the 2011 Under-17 World Cup.
He never played a first-team game and had spells with Bari and Peterborough United before joining Kilmarnock in the summer of 2016.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here