Saudi Arabian is Asia's footballer of the year

Hamad Al Montashari of Saudi Arabia won the Asian Football Confederation's Player of the Year award amid controversy, after prominent players from Japan, South Korea and Iran were deemed ineligible for the region's highest individual accolade.

The award was presented in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday evening to the 23-year-old defender, who earlier this year helped his country to qualify for the 2006 World Cup finals and his club Al Ittihad to win the AFC Champions League.

He beat Uzbekistan's striker Maksim Shatskikh, the only other contender for the honour. Al Montashari's Saudi national teammate Sami Al Jaber was also shortlisted, but he and several other top players were ruled out for the award under a long-standing AFC rule that requires players to be present at the award ceremony to be eligible for it.

Players hit by the new rule included who many regard as Asia's best  -- South Koreans Park Ji-sung and Lee Young-pyo, Japan's Shunsuke Nakamura and Hidetoshi Nakata, and last year's winner, Iranian Ali Karimi. Most of them currently play for Europe-based teams and couldn't travel to Malaysia for the ceremony.

The AFC rule on awards had never affected top Asian players in the past because they rarely signed for European clubs -- a situation that has changed in recent years with the emergence of Asian soccer.

Japan won the national team of the year title, while the country's Natsuko Hara was named female player of the year. Al Ittihad won as the club team of the year, while the Asian association of the year went to Qatar.