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

Egypt Comes of Age

In 1869 the Suez Canal was opened – it offered a water link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea without having to circumnavigate, but it meant that Europe wanted to maintain control of it. Nearly a century later, the Suez Crisis of 1956 emphasised that as France, Britain and Israel tried to take control of the Canal and Egypt too. Ultimately, they failed. But over three decades earlier Britain had a form of control that pre-dated the independence of both Egypt and Sudan.

After the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882 Britain established a protectorate over Egypt that lasted four decades. Britain formally ended its Protectorate of Egypt in 1922, but it maintained a military presence there. But football as ever was a different story. Egypt had joined FIFA in 1920, meaning that it took part in the first international football tournament that the Olympic Games Football Tournament had become before joining FIFA. In fact, it occurred before the Egyptian Football Association was established – that happened in 1921.

This raised an important question. If Egypt could play in the Olympic Games before full independence and before it had its own Football Association, why not other countries too? After the Egyptian FA was founded, Egyptian sports administrators demanded greater control of their sporting affairs from British control – this issue arose in Ghana later as well, and elsewhere in Africa too.

The Sultan Hussein Cup was the first tournament that involved Egyptian teams – the first Egyptian team to win it was Zamalek (then known as El-Mokhtalat) in 1921. Tey also won the inaugural edition of the Egypt Cup in the 1922-23 season. The Cairo League was founded in 1922, leading to leagues in other cities too. Zamalek’s bitterest rivals Al-Ahly had a strong nationalist tint.

They boycotted the 1917 Sultan Cup, but played in the next edition of it. Al-Ahly won it for the first time in 1923. They won it seven times – the last time was the final edition in 1938 against Al-Masry. Their victories included against English and Scottish teams. While Ahly had a working-class nationalist support base, Zamalek represented the privileged and expatriates, at least in the early stages of its existence. This contributed to the historic Cairo rivalry Al-Ahly had played a major role in the Cairo League. They won their first Egypt Cup in 1924, repeating the following year.

Despite their rivalry Zamalek and Ahly players united for the anti-colonial cause of Egypt in 1924 at the Olympics. Football played an important part in the independence struggle in Egypt like other parts of Africa later. It also united under the leadership of Hussein Hegazi, who was seen as the Father of Egyptian football and had played for both Cairo clubs. Hegazi was a unifying character for the players of both clubs – he had the clout to maintain team discipline. It also helped that politicians understood the power of football. The pro-independence Prime Minister, Saad Zaghoul backed the team – unity was such that arrangement were made to allow an emerging prodigy Mokhtar El-Tetsh to sit his exams inside the embassy in Paris so he would miss matches. They did better than in 1920

The stage was set for 1928.