You read that right.

Al Ahli was champion of the UAE Pro League in 2009 but flopped badly in 2009-10, sinking to eighth and losing, shamefully, to a New Zealand semi-pro team in the Club World Cup.

Ahli officials blew up the team last summer and opened this season with Fabio Cannavaro in the middle of their back line … and a real, live Premier League-proven coach in the dugout.

That would be David O’Leary, formerly of Leeds United and Aston Villa, who signed a three-year contract with the Dubai club.

And how did that work out?

O’Leary was fired this week after his side went 6-4-5 in the Pro League, good for a three-way tie for fifth. My colleague at The National, Gary Meenaghan, got the news story and I did a quick commentary on the situation.

Ahli officials dreamed a big dream, and got lots of international attention before the season. Everyone in world soccer knows Cannavaro, and everyone in Britain, certainly, knows O’Leary.

But as so often happens in UAE football, Ahhi was not prepared to finish what it started.

The side was tied at home by little Kalba on March 24, and that’s when the rumbles of “O’Leary in trouble” became louder. When Ahli was smoked 5-1 by unbeaten Al Jazira a week later, O’Leary seemed like dead-man-walking, and on Thursday he was an ex-coach.

He could feel it coming. He skipped the “required” postmatch press conference at Jazira, but I found him outside, by the team bus, and we chatted quite amiably and openly for about five minutes before he made the ride back to Dubai. He told me about Cannavaro’s apparently serious knee injury, Ahli’s injury crisis in central defense and, turning to his job security, mentioned that he had never seen a situation where victories were so gratefully received and defeats so profoundly mourned.

He indicated his job security was tenuous when he said, “Like you, I answer to someone else.” He said he hoped that someone else would give him more time.

Uh, no.

Turns out, Dubai wasn’t big enough to accommodate the tensions between O’Leary (and his staff of Premier League veterans), and a team made up entirely of Emiratis, aside from Cannavaro and two other foreigners.

O’Leary wanted to dramatically restructure the club in the coming offseason, getting rid of Cannavaro, if possible (he is 37, and O’Leary’s crew believed he is finished), Pinga, the Brazilian midfielder … and finding someone to play forward ahead of the Khalil brothers, Ahmed and Faisal.

That probably was never going to happen. Shipping out former Fifa player of the year Cannavaro early (a two-year deal) was unlikely to be agreed to, and sending away (or benching) the Khalil brothers, who are Emiratis and one of whom (Ahmed) is considered the best striker with a UAE passport, certainly wasn’t going to happen.

And in any “foreign coach vs. local player” disputes in the UAE, count on the foreign coach heading to the airport sooner than later. No matter what he may have done in the Premier League.

O’Leary told people in Dubai that he didn’t even attempt to coach Ahli the way he would have coached an English club. He went easy on the criticism, and the shouting, because players here don’t like that … even if they seem to need a bit of it.

So,  he’s gone. A guy who got Leeds United to the semifinals of the Champions League in 2001 wasn’t good enough for Al Ahli, a middling team in the Pro League. And that’s not necessarily sarcasm, because Ahli executives misjudged what kind of connection a Premier League coach could make with a UAE team.

Anyway, it’s a big story here. O’Leary always said he needed three years to get the job here finished, and those of us who have been here even one year knew that was very, very unlikely to happen.

By the way … of the 12 men who began the Pro League season as coaches, only three are still in place.