Professor Karim Chamari

Professor Karim Chamari’s ISSPF lectures focus on Ramadan in soccer, with a specific emphasis on the performance and health implications of intermittent fasting for players across training and competition. Within this content, he explores how Ramadan fasting can influence key performance factors such as hydration status, glycogen availability, sleep quality, mood, and cognitive readiness, and how these changes may present differently depending on kick-off times, climate, travel demands, and individual player responses. A major theme is the applied planning of the weekly microcycle during Ramadan, including how staff can adapt training timing, intensity distribution, recovery strategies, and nutrition periodisation (including iftar/suhoor fuelling and fluid strategies) to protect performance and reduce injury or illness risk.

Professor Karim Chamari is a leading figure in sport science, widely recognised as a highly published author and an elite research academic with a strong focus on applied soccer science. His work sits at the intersection of high-performance practice and clinical research, with a reputation for translating complex physiology and monitoring concepts into practical weekly planning models that coaches and performance staff can implement in elite environments.

He is currently Deputy Director of Clinical Research at Naufar in Doha, Qatar (June 2024–present), supporting the strategic direction and delivery of clinical research programmes. Alongside this, he has held a Scientific Researcher role at Aspetar (Qatar Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital), contributing within one of the world’s most established sport medicine and performance research settings. He has also worked in a freelance capacity as an expert in sport and exercise science (Dec 2023–Jun 2024), providing specialist insight across applied performance contexts.

Academically, he completed a PhD in Exercise Physiology at the University of Montpellier, strengthening his long-standing profile as a researcher in high-performance sport. His practical football affiliations across his career include Club Africain, Stade Tunisien, and the Tunisian Football Federation, reflecting experience that spans club and federation structures and supports his applied perspective on performance preparation.

Professor Chamari speaks French, Arabic, Italian, and English. Within ISSPF, his content focus centres on weekly planning and training structure, with a specialist emphasis on game-related physical training in elite soccer—helping practitioners design training weeks that align physical outputs with tactical goals, recovery demands, and the realities of congested competition calendars. His sessions also address the real-world coaching and sports science decisions that matter most during Ramadan: monitoring player readiness, managing load in congested schedules, and building practical frameworks that respect religious observance while maintaining high-performance standards in elite football environments.