{"id":4768,"date":"2026-08-15T15:32:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=4768"},"modified":"2026-08-15T15:33:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:33:30","slug":"the-second-betrayal-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2026\/08\/15\/the-second-betrayal-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"The Second Betrayal (Part Four)<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 15th<\/sup>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independence Struggle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is independence-day of both India and Pakistan. While modern India\u2019s leader of the independence movement, Mohandas Gandhi (the Mahatma) has a very conflicted legacy, especially in Africa, he was alive and well during the early stages of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa itself \u2013 sadly, he was on the wrong side of history there, wanting Indians to be treated apart of the British Empire and superior to Africans \u2013 they were not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As India emerged from Gandhi\u2019s errors \u2013 he had left Africa by then \u2013 parts of Africa demanded independence and they discovered an important weapon. That weapon was the most popular sport in the world \u2013 football. It became part of independence struggles, especially in Africa, but one important struggle where football does not get the credit it deserves was not of the first, if not the first in the continent\u2019s history \u2013 Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1920s saw the use of football of a weapon for anti-colonial struggle in Egypt. It was led by the club, which was latter named the Club of the Century, Al-Ahly by the Conf\u00e9d\u00e9ration Africaine de Football (CAF) the governing body of African football, which would be founded just over 35 years after Egypt secured Protectorate status, but for Al-Ahly and its support base this was not enough. Football and Al-Ahly in particular boycotted the Sultan Cup in 1917 as part of their anti-colonial struggle. Even the Egyptian authorities led by Saad Zaghoul saw the potential and backed the Egyptian team in 1924 \u2013 it even managed to unite the players of Zamalek and Al-Ahly behind Egypt\u2019s national cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egyptian Football\u2019s First Finest Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Al-Ahly achieved success on the pitch against English and Scottish teams for the cause \u2013 they dominated the Sultan Cup, winning it seven times until it was abolished in 1938. As Egypt prepared for the 1928 Olympic Games Football Tournament, wich would deliver Egypt\u2019s greatest achievement on the world stage in football, but would also be the last time that Olympic football could genuinely be seen as the unofficial world championship of football, and it should be recognised as such, Egypt itself was undergoing turmoil \u2013 it had three Prime Ministers in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1928 began with Abdel Khalek Sarwat Pasha as Prime Minister. He was termed a Constitutional Nationalist, but moderate even within that euphemistic definition. It consisted of expecting minor rewards for demonstrating compliance. These niggardly concessions did nothing but punt independence and even an end to colonialism into the distant future. He favoured mild diplomacy with their overlords rather than demonstrating and demanding change, but he saw no contradiction in suppressing revolutionaries or even those who disagreed with his pro-colonialist approach. His pathetic attempt to negotiate a treaty with Britain, the Sarwat-Chamberlain Treaty, euphemistically called a compromise was quite rightly rejected by Egypt\u2019s Parliament, as Britain insisted on keeping its troops available to suppress dissent. As the end of his plans was nigh, Sarwat resigned in March 1928 \u2013 he died later that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarwat was succeeded by Mustafa el-Nahas Pasha who lasted until June 1928, but in that time Egyptian football had what was then its finest moment on the world stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (August 15th) Independence Struggle Today is independence-day of both India and Pakistan. While modern India\u2019s leader of the independence movement, [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,14,3],"tags":[1821,1827,220,713,1829,1826,120,124,35,1644,1823,1828,1811,1825,1815,1201,1824,1629,1807,1813,708],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4769,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4768\/revisions\/4769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}