By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (August 14^th 2026)

The First Betrayal

I have a long-standing interest and love for Egypt. It has never been given the credit it richly deserves. That applies to the real Father of Medicine – clue it was not Hippocrates! In fact, the marvellous Greek medical genius came to Egypt to learn from Egyptian surgeons and physicians and about the genius who all but founded human surgery and more, two thousand years before Hippocrates – the real Father of Medicine, Imhotep.

I could continue, but it needs to be detailed in a forthcoming book, and this article is about football. So, what is this betrayal? Well, it began almost a century ago as FIFA was struggling for control over football. In 1929 the FIFA Congress in Barçelona was busy organising the first FIFA World Cup. Prior to that FIFA organised the unofficial world championship of football – that was the Olympic Games Football Tournament. South Africa was the first African member of FIFA, but even then, it was mind-bogglingly racist. White South Africans visited and played in Britain in the 19^th Century, but that is story for another day.

South African athletes competed in the Olympic Games, but not in the football, and they didn’t in the first FIFA World Cup, so Egypt was on its own in a changing world. Mighty empires had fallen or were weakened. Turkey’s Ottoman Empire had collapsed, as had Germany’s Empire and Austro-Hungary too. New football nations emerged, and one victim of FIFA too with a new name. Bohemia was betrayed disgracefully by FIFA as long ago as in 1908 at their Congress in Vienna, but that’s another story too.

In the 1920 Olympiad, Britain played for the last time until the 1950 World Cup. Denmark played too, but both withdrew from the Olympic tournaments and later FIFA over their quarrel with FIFA over amateurism. Their attitude met the Olympic ideal of the time, but came at a high price – it prevented working class participation in the sport. That was a very important part in FIFA deciding to organise its own tournament with a more understanding approach. Working class players from all over the world could not afford to pay for time off work – a change was gonna come.

Débuts

Along with Bohemia’s successor, Czechoslovakia, Egypt made African football’s Olympic bow in 1920, reaching the final, but they walked off before half time in protest at the refereeing and were ejected from the competition. 15 nations, excluding countries defeated in the Great War took part. Egypt defeated the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) 4-2 in the Exhibition Match – El-Sayed Fahmi Abaza scored a brace, Hassan Ali Allouba netted once and one of Egypt’s early stars Hussein Hegazi scored the other. Artur Dubravčić and Jovan Ružić scored for the Kingdom of SCS. They lost 2-1 to Italy in the first round. Adolfo Baloncieri scored te first goal that Egypt conceded. Five minutes later Zaki Osman equalised, scoring Africa’s first goal at the Olympic Games. Guglielmo Brezzi scored the winner. Egypt was out.

22 teams took part in 1924’s Olympiad. Great Britain and Denmark boycotted and Germany, despite being the victim of the 1923 invasion of its industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley by France and Belgium was excluded. Turkey the United States of America and South American champions, Uruguay made their Olympic s football bow. Uruguay announced their arrival in spectacular fashion. They won at the first time of asking, and did so in the heart of Europe. Sweden walloped defending champions Belgium 8-1 and Egypt beat Hungary 3-0. Ibrahim Yakan scored a brace with Hegazi scoring the other, but they lost in the quarter-final 5-0 to Sweden. Uruguay went on to beat the Netherlands 2-1 in the semi-final and Switzerland 3-0 in the final – it was the beginning of their dominance on the world stage.

And Egypt would shine in the next Olympiad, but their legacy would be betrayed.