By Mark Baber
February 9 – Egypt’s government has ordered the suspension of all Egyptian Premier League matches in the country after at least 22 fans were killed and many more injured outside the Air Defence stadium on Sunday, prior to the game between Cairo clubs Zamalek and ENPPI. Some reports now put the death toll at over 40.
Doctors told Reuters that the deaths were as a result of suffocation – with a witness saying the fans were killed in a stampede after police fired tear gas. A statement by Egypt’s Health Ministry claimed most of the deaths were caused by stampeding as evidenced by bruising and several broken necks.
According to Egypt’s Interior Ministry: “Huge numbers of Zamalek club fans came to Air Defense Stadium to attend the match … and tried to storm the stadium gates by force, which prompted the troops to prevent them from continuing the assault.”
The public prosecutors office is placing the blame on Zamalek’s ultras – the Ultras White Knights – who played a major role in the protests which led to the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and has ordered the arrest of their leaders.
The Ultras White Knights, for their part, hailed those killed as martyrs who had been targeted in a deliberate act of revenge by the security services for the fan’s part in the 2011 uprising.
Although the match went ahead, the Prime Minister’s office announced in a statement that the Egyptian cabinet has ordered the Egyptian Premier League will now be postponed indefinitely.
Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered an investigation, but video spreading on social media, which shows police firing tear gas and shotgun rounds into a mass of supporters squeezed into a narrow pathway outside the stadium, supports the account of eyewitnesses who say fans became angry at being kept in a confined space, tensions rose, the police fired a teargas canister and then, as the supporters attempted to flee, fired shotguns into the crowd.
The death toll has yet to be established with some reports saying that as many as 40 fans have reportedly killed. This is the third mass killing involving football fans since the Egyptian revolution and subsequent political upheavals, with more than 70 Al Ahly fans having died in a massacre in Port Said in 2012.
Limits on the numbers of fans attending football games in Egypt were only recently lifted and after this latest incident ends hopes that a return to normality would be possible. Indeed, against the background of a highly antagonistic political atmosphere and given the fierce animosities between police and supporters it is difficult to see how football can continue in Egypt without a fundamental rethink.
Football stadia have been major flashpoints in Egyptian politics and the violence that led to the 74 Port Said deaths in turn resulted, eventually, in the sentencing to death of 21 fans of Port Said’s Al Masri SC, sentences that are currently pending appeal. Under the current Abdel Fattah Al Sisi military backed government in Egypt, hundreds of Muslim Brothers have been sentenced to death though none have yet been executed.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has sent a letter of condolence to Mohamed Gamal, the president of the Egyptian Football Association (EFA).
“I would like to express my deepest condolences to the Egyptian football community for the tragic events that occurred at last night’s match in Cairo between Zamalek and ENPPI… It is so sad that a game of football, which should be the scene of joy and positive emotions, should be overshadowed in this way.
“We await the results of the investigation into this tragedy and are ready to provide the Egyptian Football Association with any support they may need in dealing with the aftermath of this event,” Blatter said.
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