January 30 – The Egyptian Premier League, which hasn’t seen a ball kicked in competitive action since February 2012, may still start this weekend (February 2) despite on-going street violence and instability within the country. Games will be played behind closed doors.
But even playing behind closed doors there is no certainty that safety and public order can be ensured as fan groups have already said that they will protest outside stadiums. This could make it impossible for the games to be played.
Violence flared up Egypt in reaction to the sentencing to death of 21 football fans for their part in the Port Said Stadium disaster where 74 Al Ahly fans were killed in the stadium following an away match against Al Masry.
At least 40 people have died in rioting following the sentencing, including two professional players in Port Said who were shot on the way to training.
The restart of the league has been postponed on a number of occasions already and the new start was fixed to co-incide with the end of the trial.
But there have been more calls for the league to be further postponed after President Morsi declared a state of emergency in Port Said, Suez and Ismailia.
Egyptian Football Association (EFA) official Mahmoud El-Shami said that the league will start as scheduled. The football governing body has even set new venues for the Suez and Ismailia based-teams, due to security reasons.
EFA President Gamal Allam said that that the preparations are going as scheduled and that there won’t be any postponement or cancelation unless it is required officially. But he also said that football is not the priority right now and that the country’s security and peace comes first.
For Egyptian football generally, the delay to league starting is hampering preparation for the national team.
“We support resuming the premier league as we are arranging a national team camp after the first week of the league,” said Egypt’s assistant coach, Diaa El-Sayed.
The Egyptian national team have a World Cup qualifying match against Zimbabwe in March. The seven-time African champions top Group G with six points from two games, three ahead of second-placed Guinea. Zimbabwe and Mozambique have one point each.
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