Five months after Covid-19 stopped football in Egypt dead in its tracks, the league is set to make its long-awaited return. The competition resumes on Thursday 6 August with one match to be played, Zamalek versus Masri, at Borg Al-Arab Stadium in Alexandria. The league was supposed to kick off on 7 August but was brought forward one day because of the country's senate elections. Before the coronavirus brought a complete halt to football and all other sports in Egypt in March, Ahly were leading the league table with 49 points from 17 games. The Arab Contractors are in a distant second with 33 points from 18 games. Ahly's arch rivals Zamalek lie fourth with 31 points from 16 games. The Cairo derby between Ahly and Zamalek will be played in Cairo Stadium on 22 August. “We sent the league schedule to security authorities 10 days ago for their approval. We are ready to resume the league,” head of competitions Hossam Al-Zanati said. Al-Zanati said the delayed 2019-2020 season would now finish by October “so we can start the new season, 2020-21, immediately so that it ends on 30 June 2021”. For the most part, the teams are slightly past the mid-season mark. Professional football has not been played in Egypt since 15 March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The government recently decided to allow sports to resume starting 20 June. The Egyptian Football Association (EFA) has announced the schedule of the matches to be played in August. According to Al-Zanati, the remaining schedule will be announced now that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) on Monday confirmed the dates of the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup. Three Egyptian clubs are participating in the two tournaments. Ahly and Zamalek are in the Champions League and Pyramids in the Confederation Cup. The CAF Emergency Committee approved the revised calendar for the Interclubs competitions which was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The semi-finals of the Confederation Cup will kick off on 22 September with Pyramids (Egypt) vs Horoya (Guinea) at Mohamed V Complex in Casablanca. On the same day, RS Berkane (Morocco) will play HUSA (Morocco) at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat. The final is scheduled for 27 September at Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium. All matches will be played behind closed doors. Following the withdrawal of Cameroon from hosting the final four of the Champions League, and in line with the principle of fairness, it was decided against hosting a final four in either Egypt or Morocco, whose representatives constitute the semi-finalists -- Ahly and Zamalek (Egypt) and Raja Club Athletic and Wydad Athletic Club (Morocco). Accordingly, the semi-final matches will be played on a home and away basis with the first leg matches to be played on 25 and 26 September 2020 in Morocco while the second leg matches will be played on 2 and 3 October in Egypt. According to the CAF statement, in the principle of fairness, the final will be played at a neutral venue in the event a team from Egypt and Morocco qualify from the semis. Consequently, the bidding process has been opened to member associations excluding Egypt and Morocco for the hosting of a one-off final. Interested member associations are to submit their bidding file including the venue for the match and the mandatory government guarantee no later than 17 August 2020. If the two Egyptian clubs or Moroccan clubs progress to the final, the one-off match will be played in either Egypt or Morocco with a proposed date of 16 or 17 October. In that regard, the concerned member associations -- Egyptian Football Association and the Royal Moroccan Football Federation -- have been issued a deadline of 15 August to confirm their availability. CAF will continue discussions with the various stakeholders on the possibilities of organising the remaining matches of the Champions League behind closed doors or otherwise. The CAF guidelines for the restart of competitions put together by the CAF Medical Committee in collaboration with the CAF Technical and Development Department will be applied for staging the remaining matches of the Interclubs season. The guidelines highlight effective and continuous medical assessment (testing) of players and officials, plans for training sessions, disinfection of sporting facilities, as well as strict adherence to the global preventive protocols. CAF is monitoring the situation closely and working with the relevant authorities with regards to hosting of the matches, and will make pronouncements accordingly in the event of developments that will affect playing a match at the designated venue. The EFA had announced the Covid-19 health precautions and restrictions for the 18 clubs to be followed before, during and after matches. Among the guidelines, ceremonies which include shaking hands before matches have been cancelled. There will be no spectators in the stands but that has been the case since 2012 when a domestic football riot killed 72 fans. Since the government gave the green light to professional Egyptian sports to resume in late June, athletes in individual and team sports have been training to get ready for their respective championships. In the past two weeks, soccer teams have started training and almost every team has played at least three or four friendly matches to get in shape. At the same time every team has carried out five to six Covid-19 tests on its players and staff under the supervision of team doctors and the Ministry of Health. The EFA and the Ministry of Youth and Sports have implemented a new set of precautionary measures including testing, training and medical guidelines. The EFA has finalised its medical tests for most clubs, including players, trainers and employees. The EFA announced on its Facebook page that it will let clubs train in groups after the Eid Al-Adha holidays. The players must first have medical check-ups starting 4 August and which will be conducted according to a schedule. The club Al-Entag Al-Harbi (Military Production) has asked for a delay of its matches after 18 players tested positive for the virus after attending a training camp at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. According to the club's director, the administration needs time to find replacements and a solution that would allow them to continue in the competition. EFA board member Mohamed Fadl said any postponement of any game in the Egyptian Premier League was out of the question. Fadl added that the schedule was too tight to allow for postponements. “There is no time to postpone any game for even an hour. We hope all games will be played as scheduled,” he added. “Our role in the EFA is to resolve the problem and we hope they (the 18 cases) will all recover soon as there is no intention to postpone games,” Fadl said. “We intended to announce the full schedule of the league, but we started with the current schedule and will release the date of the remaining matches after determining the date of the CAF games,” Fadl said on TV. As for Egypt's football cup, EFA head of the competitions committee Al-Zanati said it will resume after the Premier League games are finished. “The games in the Egypt Cup that were postponed will be played in 12 days. After that, the cup will resume after the Premier League games end,” he said Zamalek are set to face Smouha in the 16th round of the Egypt Cup while Cairo giants Ahly will play Tersana to complete the quarter-final teams. In addition, the EFA decided to resume the second division on 20 September. On the other hand, the Normalisation Committee which was appointed by FIFA in August last year to run Egyptian football after the resignation of its elected board, will remain on duty for four more months to finish pending tasks, including the most important: the elections of a new board. The five-member committee's mandate was scheduled to conclude by the end of July after which elections of a new board would be held. The committee replaced the former board which resigned immediately after Egypt's early elimination, from the round of 16, at the Africa Cup of Nations which was hosted by Egypt in June-July 2019. However, because of differences in interpretation of some articles in the Egyptian sports law and FIFA regulations, the elections cannot take place for the time being. Accordingly, FIFA decided to extend the duration of the term of the Normalisation Committee to 30 November. During the remaining time, the committee, headed by Amr Al-Ganaini, is required to work on finalising pending issues and setting a date for the elections. *A version of this article appears in print in the 6 August, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
