by The huge gulf between women’s and men’s football in Egypt – the most populous country in northern Africa and the Arab world in general – can be measured by their contrasting success at the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). and the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon). – the two best national team competitions on the continent.
While the Pharaohs of Egypt, the Afcon record winners will be looking for an unprecedented eighth title in Ivory Coast in January, their female counterparts, the Cleopatras, managed by Mohamed Kamala and captained by Maha Al-Demerdash, failed to qualify for Morocco 2024 , losing 4 -0 on aggregate to Senegal in the final qualifying round last week.
With the number of fans dwindling, mostly school children, the 30,000-strong Al Salam stadium in Cairo held barely a thousand people. “People usually don’t care about women’s football in Egypt,” says Inas Mazhar, one of the country’s leading football journalists and a Ballon D’or voter for 16 years.
“A lot of people think that football is not a game for women and they have this archaic view that women who play football are not in tune with our femininity and our culture. The prevailing negative attitude is a major hindrance to the growth of the game here,” says Mazhar.
Having not qualified for Wafcon since 2016 – and having only played two editions since its inception in 1998, the Cleopatras will have to wait a little longer to end their competition drought. It will be a pity for Sahar ElHawary, who in 1999 was the first woman to be a referee in Egypt, if he does not qualify again. She is generally recognized as the champion of the development of women’s football in the country.
Her late father, Ezzat, was an international referee and prominent figure in Egyptian football and El Hawary played a key role in the gathering of players who went to the inaugural Wafcon in 1998, in Nigeria, as well as the 2016 tournament in Cameroon.
Her quest to change the face of male-dominated Egyptian football began in 1993, a year after her father’s death. Recruiting well-known ex-footballers as a coaching staff, El Hawary went on a scouting mission across Egypt to find players to build the women’s team, housing them in her own home and paying wages out of her own pocket.
“When I was young, I followed my father around when he was working and I saw everything he did. He gave me the passion for the game. Being a daughter definitely helped me, because it created a reputation that I could build on. I faced many challenges because no one took women’s football seriously. I had to do so many things by myself.
“I am definitely not happy with the current state of women’s football in Egypt. I left the Egyptian FA board about seven years ago. Things should be much better. There needs to be better planning.”
An attempt was made to speak to Kamala and some of the players regarding the state of the game in Egypt. “Everyone has refused to do any interviews at the moment, due to the media ban on the team [because of missing out on Wafcon]. They will be fined financially if they speak to the media,” said team spokesman Mohamed El-Sayegh.
Egypt’s 16-team women’s league started in 2000. Wadi Degla emerged as champions but fan interest is high and the league has no sponsorship.
With the Confederation of African Football, Caf, making the establishment and active ownership of a women’s team a condition of eligibility to play in the men’s Champions League, leading clubs such as Al Ahly and Zamalek are forced to field women’s teams. development now.
It is yet another generation of the El Hawary family, Omar Mohamed Abdallah, son of the Sahara, who took on the challenge of developing the next generation of female players, through his AIMZ Girls Football Academy, which started in 2014.
Abdallah says he has 800 girls from all over the country. “AIMZ started organizing school football tournaments in 2013, for international schools across Cairo, for both boys and girls. After our first tournament we found a lot of good talent who didn’t have the platform to play football so we decided to create this platform by inviting all the girls who participated in the tournament and took off that’s it.
“We started with one branch in east Cairo and then from the second year we had a branch in east and west Cairo.”
But without the Egyptian FA having a master plan for the overall development of the women’s game, and the discipline to implement it – like their Moroccan counterparts who reached the 2022 Wafcon final and became the first Arab team to qualify for the Cup World, the last 16 was reached this year – a systematic, organized growth of the women’s game in the most populous Arab country is still a miracle.
• This is an excerpt from our free weekly email, Moving the Goal Posts. To get the full issue visit this page and follow the instructions.
