{"id":692611,"date":"2026-06-09T01:23:28","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/692611\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T01:23:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:23:28","slug":"arsenal-head-of-sports-medicine-dr-zafar-iqbal-leaving-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/692611\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal: Head of sports medicine Dr Zafar Iqbal leaving club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a>&#8216;s head of sports medicine Dr Zafar Iqbal is leaving after two years at the club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is understood the process of replacing the medical practitioner, who has also worked at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/crystal-palace\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crystal Palace<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/liverpool\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a>, is underway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iqbal was informed in a meeting last week, in the aftermath of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/arsenal\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arsenal<\/a>&#8216;s Champions League final loss to Paris St-Germain, that he would be departing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He arrived at Emirates Stadium in 2024, replacing Gary O&#8217;Driscoll who left to join <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/manchester-united\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Iqbal is highly respected throughout football and the decision has come unexpectedly, though some members of staff have been aware of the uncertainty over his future in recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The reasons are unclear, but the Gunners&#8217; squad sustained a number of key injuries throughout the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal&#8216;s head of sports medicine Dr Zafar Iqbal is leaving after two years at the club. It is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-692611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}