Written by:
Mohamed Mostafa
Designed by:
Ahmed Kamel
Carrying his
shoes in his hands, after finishing his work shift, he takes a tuktuk to Tasnee
club from the fourth division, where he plays in the first team. He hopes that
these lean years would end soon.
Ahmed Nady
Mohamed, the Tasnee club player, works as a salesman in a shop for the mobiles
accessories sales and maintenance. He says: “Football is a life to us. The work
doesn’t satisfy me, but it helps me to live”.
Away from the
cameras and the followers, thousands of players play hot matches in the second,
third and fourth divisions, and the youth centers. They hope to continue
playing to get transferred to one of the better clubs that could ensure them a
decent life, secure their future financially, and allow them to achieve a success
in the hobby they loved and practiced since childhood … Football.
In this
feature story, we uncover to you the drop in the footballers’ base in Egypt.
Despite the financial ecstasy in the premiere league clubs, id didn’t have any
impact on the footballers’ base, or the money flow to the small clubs. The chances for a new talent to appear have shrunk. Hence
the football studios would question about a striker for the national team, and
a substitute for Abdallah Alsaid. While Salah remains a boom that will not
recur.
Ahmed Nady,
the Tasnee player is 21 years old. He advanced from the emerging sector to the
first team. Beside that he works in a shop for the selling and maintenance of
mobiles and accessories.
Ahmed Nady studies
in the faculty of physical education. He works in the mobiles shop without a
weekend for about 10 to 12 hours daily. Besides, he goes to 5 training session
each week. “I ask the permission of the shop owner for a lunch break or a study
session to go to the training”.
The clubs are
suffering as well. Hany Said the chairman of Goldi sporting club competing in
the third division says to Yallakora that the expenses of the first team will
reach 3 million pounds this season with an increase from 2.6 million pounds the
last season. And that he can only secure 60% of that by the selling and the
transfers of the players while the rest of the money will be paid from his own
pocket”.
The economic
state had an impact on the base of football practicing in all the league divisions
and youth centers. The numbers emanating from the Central Agency for Public
Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) are shocking as
they show a huge decrease in the total number of amateur and professional
players practicing football in the last 5 years, and particularly in the last 2
years.
CAPMAS
addresses all the sports facilities in Egypt (governmental, public sector,
private clubs, youth centers of the cities and governorates) to provide it with
the number of players classified according to the game (football, handball,
basketball, wrestling, etc.), the gender (male or female), and the age (elders
or emerging). That’s how the data are collected for a comprehensive inventory
for all the listed facilities.
CAPMAS
announces the annual numbers by the end of the following year. It is decided
that the numbers of players for 2017 to be announced in December 2018, and
likewise for all the past years.
An amateur or
a professional
Nady earns 400
to 600 pounds for playing in the first team of Tasnee, and his salary includes
a monthly incentive of 150 pounds.
FIFA lists Ahmed Nady and some of Goldi
sporting club players as amateurs not professionals. According to FIFA
regulations, a professional is a player who has a written contract with a club
and is paid more for his footballing activity than the expenses he effectively
incurs. All other players are considered to be amateurs.
Egyptian
Football Association (EFA) … A timid development
The salary of
Nady was only 10 pounds. “After that there was a raise, when I became 18 my
salary became 150 pounds” Nady said.
EFA showed
that the lack of support for the lower divisions’
clubs goes back to the absence of sponsors for these leagues and clubs.
Magdi
Abdelghani EFA member said: “we couldn’t get sponsors even for the second
division clubs, because of the big numbers of the clubs and the bad quality of
the football fields. We decided to create a new competition (B Premiere league)
that includes only 18 clubs to develop a stronger league that encourage the
sponsors to support this division, and to save some for the support of the rest
of the divisions that are not interesting to the sponsors.” He added: “The
clubs that don’t have capabilities, will always be down”
The second
division league now is formed of three groups, Upper Egypt group, Cairo group
and the north group with 16 clubs in each group.
Mahmoud Saad
the technical manager of Ittihad Alexandria Club said that the first division
(premiere league) is the only division that could be considered professional in
Egypt. Otherwise, the other divisions are not considered professional.
FIFA statistic
“The work has
a bad psychological and physical impact on me; it doesn’t give me a space for
football. It is too difficult to be a player” Nady said in despair before he
continues trying to uphold his childhood dream: “Football can’t be just a hobby;
I have the ambition to reach something”
The number of
registered Egyptian players in a statistic issued by the FIFA statistics authority
in 2006 was estimated to be 260 Thousand players. While in Germany which have a
similar population number to Egypt, there are 9 million players.
We mailed FIFA
to ask about updated numbers of players in Egypt. But FIFA corporate
communications manager Alexander Koch replied that we have to go back to the
EFA because FIFA doesn’t have any updated statistics for the numbers of players.
Discrepancy in EFA
Nady is one of
the registered players in the EFA records since he started participating in the
EFA competitions of the emerging sector till today.
EFA doesn’t
have a statistic for the number of the professional or the amateur players.
According to Walid El-Attar, the head of the players’ affairs committee in EFA:
“The contracts of all the registered players are available in EFA but they were
not counted”
Mahmoud Saad
the technical manager of EFA showed to YallaKora that he only has a statistic
for the number of EFA registered players for the last 3 years, since he was
assigned for this position in March 2015. The number of players back then was
58 thousand players. In 2016, it was 78 thousand players and in 2017 it became
102 thousand players.
Despite the
increase in the numbers given to us by Mahmoud Saad, he wasn’t satisfied with
them. As they represent 0.001 % from the total population of Egypt which is a
very low percentage, and that he is working on a project to develop the
academies to increase the participants base.
Hany Abo Rida
the president of EFA had a press statement late 2016 in which he mentioned that
the number of players in EFA records for that year was about 90 thousands,
which is different from the number Mahmoud Saad gave us.
The numbers
given by Mahmoud Saad for 2015 is equal to the number of the CAPMAS if we
exclude the number of registered players in youth centers. But in the following
year, 2016, Mahmoud Saad’s numbers (78 thousand players) were different from
the numbers issued by CAPMAS after excluding the players in youth centers
(56011 players)
The private
sector expansion
Hany Said the
chairman of Goldi sporting club revealed a trick some managers do. They buy the
name of a small club for emerging players and they bring a number of young
players who pay an amount of money monthly. Then he leads them in the matches
of the sectors league hoping that he could market one of those players and he
gets a fiscal return from selling him.
Goldi chairman
considered that this way is not an investment but a way for quick profit. But he
didn’t deny the benefits the players get from that, as it is an easy way to get
experience and display themselves for the other clubs hoping for a better
future.
The model of
England
Nady who comes
from an average working-class family said: “I start building myself with
nothing in hand, I was saving and I got engaged but I couldn’t get married for
some circumstances”
Nady talks
about the pressures he got from his father to leave football and look for a
future, like what happened with his brother who was playing in Zamalek emerging
team but left for a full-time job in the end because he couldn’t show
commitment in all the team camps. What put more pressure on him is that once he
broke his hand he had to take a 10-day leave that was cut from his salary.
James webb,
the communication manager in the English football association, said that
footballing is a professional job in England, because it is a full time job.
There are semiprofessional degrees for those who work in other jobs beside
football and amateur degrees in which the players play for entertainment not
for money.
The
communication manager said exclusively to YallaKora that his country has 4
divisions for professionals with a full-time job, starting from the premiere
league to league two, and then other 7 levels for the provisional league, 4 of
them include semiprofessional clubs.
The English
football association considered increasing the number of professional levels
from 4 to 5 so that the clubs number increase from 92 to 100 clubs.
The English
competitions in total are 58 with 84 divisions. The English football
association aims to provide the clubs with the financial and logistic
capabilities, and monitor the rise and fall among the different levels.
The following info
graph shows the professional levels in England and the national league, the
first level of the semiprofessionals which the association discusses changing
to a professionals’ level.
And there are
other seven levels for the English provisional league as follows:
Hany Said the
chairman of Goldi sporting club expressed his wish that the league in Egypt would
work the same way it works in England: “The problem is that there are a big
number of youth centers registered in EFA that participate in the league with
the clubs from the second, third and fourth divisions”
Goldi chairman
suggested that the youth centers to be excluded, and there could be a youth
centers league separated from the professional levels which include only the
clubs. Consequently, the number would decrease and EFA and the clubs would be
able to bring sponsors.
He said that
the function of youth centers is to be a nucleus for talents production, and
that it could get a financial return for the player who gets transferred to a
club, and that would help developing the infrastructure, supporting other
talented players and preparing them to play in the clubs and the higher levels.
Football is
not for earning a living
We reached
some second division players and found that a number of players are working in
other jobs beside football. One of them works in making bread, but he refused
to make an interview with YallaKora. We reached another player from the second
division who moved recently to one of the premiere league clubs and used to
work in Careem Company for transportation.
Goldi chairman
said that he also has players who have other jobs beside football; one of them
works in a pharmacy.
It is
difficult to control that a player would have another job. Mohamed Fadl the
regulations expert and sports councilor for the general authority of youth and
sports in UAE said: “sports law didn’t recognize football as a profession in
the first place”. He added: “The laid down contracts in Egypt don’t make an
obligation on the player unlike Europe. The player has the right to have an
investment project but he can’t run it until he retires”
Providing
gadgets for players
About the
gadgets Tasnee club provides for its players Nady said: “we take a jersey and
shorts for the matches and the same for the training. We take socks but I buy
the football boots. I can take secondhand
football boots from the club to sell it and add some money to buy a new one”.
He said laughing: “I played a lot with one shoe different from the other, one is size 42 and the other is 44. But the team is good, we all help each other. Whoever has something missing, one teammate helps him”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLgSyybuTCw&feature=youtu.be
Goldi chairman
explained that the players have to be excused because the value of the contracts
signed with the clubs is not big and the money payments are done through the
whole season. Taking into consideration the participation percentage, the
discounts coming from taking yellow cards or absences and others, the player
wants to be financially secured so he works beside playing football and he is
not to be blamed for that.
In Article 25
of the sports law it is stated that there are 5 resources for the sports
association.
Ahmed
El-mesery the president of Nabaruh club competing in the second division league
and is falling to the third division said that the club revenues don’t exceed a
million pounds annually. That represents 25 to 30 percent of the needed for
expenditure. Consequently the fiscal deficit percentage is more than 70
percent.
El-mesery said
in a telephone call with “YallaKora” that the club board of directors includes
3 businessmen who support the club financially. In addition, there are little advertising
from the ministry of sports and EFA to cover the rest of the expenses.
Nabaruh
president complained about the shortage in financial support in comparison to
the clubs owned by companies that he described as “a burden on the popular
clubs”.
A proposal to
resolve the crisis
Mohamed Fadl-Allah
the regulations expert, proposed a resolution to save the players expenditure
and increase the practicing base. That’s by accrediting the sports union of
schools and universities and making it a member of the Olympic committee. He
said: “Egypt has 45 thousand schools and 22 million students which is a very
big number compared to the numbers in the clubs and youth centers.”
He said: “In
case of the increase of the practicing base, the clubs use of clothes,
catering, medication and all the other needs will increase as well, and that
will push the companies to sponsor the clubs and the players.”
The
inspiration of Salah and Vardy
Mohamed Salah
has an inspirational story, as he started playing with a ball made of socks in
the streets of his village, Nagrig. After that he had many experiences in
Nagrig youth center, Basyoun club and Othmanon team (Tanta contractors), until
he reached a professional level.
Moreover,
Salah had an experience in PEPSI schools league which polished his talent. And
he had a professional experience in Al Mokawloon Al Arab SC, and scaled up through
the different age levels before joining the first team, to start his journey
with the national teams and the European experience.
Salah said in
a TV interview for Modern Sport Channel after he moved to Basel FC: “I used to travel
4 times a week from my village in Basyoun to the premises of Al Mokawloon Al
Arab SC in Cairo in a very young age”
The English
Vardy has another exceptional story in moving forward from playing in the
amateurs’ levels to the professional levels and getting crowned after winning
the premiere league with leicester city in 2013 scoring 13 goals.
5 years
earlier, Vardy was playing in Stocksbridge Park Steels F.C. from the seventh
English division while working in a part time job in a factory for medical
splints before he moved up in the higher levels reaching leicester city and
winning the premiere league and joining his national team in the world cup.
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