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Sports Washing and Politics in African Football By Carey Baraka Between 2006 and 2010, the Egyptian national men’s football team proved to be a resolute force at the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), winning the continental trophy three times. Fans of this all- conquering Egyptian side remember such names as Essam El-Hadary, Hosni Abd Rabou, Mohamed Zidan, and Amr Zaki. For many, the qualities of marauding midfielder Mohamed Aboutrika, exemplified the spirit of the team. Aboutrika, also known as “El Magico”, “Amir El Qolob” (prince of hearts), or, simply, “Arab’s Zidane”, won the CAF ( Confederation of African Football) Africa Best Player of the Year a record four times and scored the sole goal in the final in AFCON 2008 as The Pharaohs edged out the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon at the Ohene Djan Stadium in Accra. With his status as a legend of Egyptian football, one would have expected that at the concluded 2019 Total African Cup of Nations hosted by Egypt, Aboutrika would have been the face of the tournament, his image emblazoned across the country’s stadia. However, Aboutrika was absent from the tournament, and from the country entirely. Aboutrika has been in exile in Qatar since 2017 and on the country’s terror watch list because of his links with the Muslim Brotherhood. Aboutrika established a reputation for voicing strong political views. In 2008, in a national team game against Sudan, Aboutrika celebrated a goal by removing his jersey to reveal a T-shirt underneath with a message reading “Sympathize with Gaza”, written in both Arabic and English, in protest of Israel’s ten-day blockade of Gaza. In Port Said, Ultras Ahlawy a fan group founded in 2007 that supported the Cairo-based football club Al Ahly, that Aboutrika represented for ten years gained prominence for its pyros, songs and chants during football games, of which the most prominent was one that went “We Are Egypt.” Ultras Ahlawy had several violent clashes with Egyptian police through to 2011 as the Egyptians took to the streets to end Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorial rule. After the overthrow of Mubarak’s democratically elected successor, Mohammed Morsi, by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) the Ultras Ahlway took to singing mocking songs about SCAF and the police. On 1st February 2012, Al Ahly travelled to Port Said to face Al-Masry in a national league game. After the match, Al-Masry supporters attacked Al-Ahly supporters with stones, knives and bottles, leading to a massacre that left 74 Al-Ahly supporters dead, and hundreds injured. The Al-Ahly players were also attacked by the Al-Masry supporters, and fled the pitch to the dressing rooms under police cover. One boy who had followed the players in an attempt to flee the violence, succumbed to his injuries, and died in Aboutrika’s arms. Aboutrika, together with two of his teammates, promptly announced his retirement from the game. “This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us,” he cried. Immediately, people began to question the incident, saying that it could not have been simply fan violence. Why were the Al-Masry fans so heavily armed? Why had the police stood by and done nothing as the Al-Ahly fans were being killed? Why had the escape doors been locked? Who had turned off the lights so soon after the violence started? Some people began to allude a link to the violence to Ultras Ahlawy opposition to SCAF. It was alleged that the Port Said attack was retribution, and police and military officers had facilitated the attack. On 1st February 2012, Al Ahly travelled to Port Said to face Al-Masry in a national league game. After the match, Al-Masry supporters attacked Al-Ahly supporters with stones, knives and bottles, leading to a massacre that left 74 Al-Ahly supporters dead, and hundreds injured. The national league was suspended, and no matches played for seven months. Later that year, it was announced that first match would be played on 9th September 2012, and would pit Al Ahly against ENPPI in the Egypt Super Cup final. Ultras Ahlawy protested this decision, and called for a boycott of all football matches until there was justice for the seventy-four people who had been murdered in Port Said. Aboutrika, who had rescinded with his retirement, supported the Ultras, and announced that he would not play any game until the seventy four had received their justice. By siding with a fan group known for its anti-SCAF position, Aboutrika, who a year earlier had publicly campaigned for Morsi, seemed to seal his fate with the ruling military junta. On July 19th, 2019, The Desert Foxes of Algeria lifted the 2019 Total African Cup of Nations, beating Senegal’s Lions of Teranga via an early goal from Baghdad Bounedjah. I spent a huge chunk of the tournament on the road, and watched matches from Kisumu, Marsabit, Moyale, and Nairobi. In a matatu in Kisumu just before Kenya’s first match in the competition, the driver and his mate were talking about the 2019 Total African Cup of Nations. The friend asked the driver what he thought of Kenya’s chances of progressing in the competition. The driver said, in Dholuo, “I must support our home team, even if they are beaten”. A few days later, I was in Marsabit. Seated in a kinyozi (a barbershop) in town, I listened to men talk about AFCON. Kenya had just beaten Tanzania, coming from behind to win off two magical goals by Michael Olunga, and there was a euphoric sense of belief coursing through the room. Up next was Senegal, and there was a sense that, though a difficult ask, beating them was not impossible. Kenya’s match against Tanzania, which was one of the most exciting games of the group stages, was played under a maelstrom caused by Starehe MP Charles Njagua’s xenophobic remarks about Tanzanians, and other foreign workers in the country. In a video that was shared widely across social media, the first-time legislator accuses foreign nationals, notably Chinese, Tanzanians and Ugandans traders of dominating trade in Gikomba and Nyamkima markets in Nairobi at the expense of Kenyan traders and threatens them with eviction. As we watched the Kenya-Tanzania game, my host and I talked about Mr. Njagua’s comments, and we wondered whether the match had gained added importance because of them. We were both supporting Kenya. His wife, N, however, was not. Kenya, she said, had harmed people from Northern Kenya, and she did not see why she should support a country that had harmed her. The matatu driver in Kisumu had said that he had to support the home team irrespective of the results. But, what happens when the state itself is oppressive and the force behind personal harm? A few weeks earlier, I had been in Kisumu watching an Elgon Cup rugby match between Kenya and Uganda, and I had remained seated while Kenya’s national anthem was being played, in a silent protest to the injustices committed by the Kenyan state. Yet there I was, having bought a ticket, supporting Kenya. N didn’t know any of this, didn’t know that I had been thinking about this for weeks, didn’t know that when she said that she would rather support Algeria and Senegal and Tanzania and whoever else Kenya was playing against, I felt her frustration. I wonder what it feels like to be a football fan in Egypt, to be a fan of the Egyptian national team. A major talking point from the African Cup of Nations is how empty the stadiums were. One would have expected more fans in the stadiums, since part of CAF’s reason for changing the dates of the competition from the traditional January to June had been to draw in more fans. In January, the European football leagues occupy attention. However, a combination of high ticket prices and the complicated process of getting fan IDs meant that a lot of fans were locked out. To get a fan ID, one has to supply all manner of personal details to the government, and the risks of doing this in a country with minimal data privacy laws outweigh their interests in watching the game. The militarization of Egyptian football has played a part in keeping fans away from the stadiums. Writing in African Arguments, a researcher, says, “It is also seen – albeit less obviously – in the securitisation of the sport’s superstructure and infrastructure by the army and security apparatus. Among other things, security forces have been acquiring sports media, specifically TV channels, in the past few years. Through this, they have been influencing the discourse around football by vilifying organised fans groups known as The Ultras and glorifying the regime.” The military junta in Egypt changed the law making stadiums, in effect, military establishments, and any fans arrested in a stadium would be subject to military trials. The regime’s fear of organized protest has led to the crackdown of fan groups as a political threat. Speaking to Ruth Michaelson of The Guardian, Ziad Akl, an analyst with the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies said, “The state is trying to teach you how to cheer…It’s not that the state has an issue with you cheering, it’s that it has an issue with how you’re cheering.” After the Port Said disaster, the government banned fans from the stadia. This had a knock-on effect on the national team, as, without any fans to roar them on, and national league matches most of the players lacked match practice, The Pharaohs sank to hitherto unimaginable lows.

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