Despite the panic of May, Reem Nafie finds that nearly everyone has found a place to watch the match Egyptians, being football fanatics, spent much of May debating how and where they would watch the 2006 World Cup. Those who could afford it subscribed to the ART World Cup channels, paying between LE300 to LE900 depending on registration status. The rest of the nation waited for a miracle to happen -- hoping the Egyptian Radio and Television Union would buy the rights to broadcast matches on local television. But the Saudi-owned satellite channel that possessed exclusive broadcast rights for the Middle East and Africa asked $5.2 million to relay the matches, a figure the Egyptian government considered ridiculously high. ART reports that two million Egyptians have subscribed to its service. A few thousand more have access to German satellite channels airing the event. This still left a majority of Egyptians out in the cold. It is a gap, though, that MPs, hotels, sports bars, clubs and coffee shops have been more than willing to plug. It's no secret that the World Cup is good for business. Now, hope MPs, it will also be good for votes. Coffee shops, bars and hotels scrambled to subscribe to ART's World Cup channels, and to buy huge screens to air the matches in the hope of luring all the football-crazed fans that had no other place to watch the all-important event. And inevitably the minimum charge began to appear in venues that had never dreamed of such a thing before. In most Downtown areas those watching matches at popular venues must now spend on average LE20. In a recent interview ART owner Saleh Kamel pointed out that if people actually paid LE20 to watch each of the 64 matches they would be forking out far more than the subscription fee. Kamel also said that there were "six- million thieves... illegally accessing the service", using unauthorised decoders or wire connections to decoders which are legally subscribed. Door to door callers in Nasr City were reportedly offering World Cup channels for LE20, while Downtown coffee shops, barbers and grocers have "borrowed" connections from adjacent buildings. MPs, meanwhile, were busy fighting it out to see who would provide the service first. In Nasr City NDP candidate Mustafa El-Sallab had wanted to set up huge screens in the street but was pipped to the post by Muslim Brotherhood candidate Essam Mokhtar, who managed to get the necessary legal permits first. Giza MP Mohamed Abul-Enein's provision of screens for his constituents appears to be having the desired effect if the response of baker Mohamed Sobhi is anything to go by. "We pray for him everyday, he provided us with something we needed -- at least he knows how much we love football, unlike the government who did nothing to help us," he said. Manial MP Shahinaz El-Naggar chose youth centres as the venue for the screenings of matches, a far from popular decision with most people preferring to watch in coffee shops, where drinks and shisha are available. Not that the café managers are complaining about this sudden surge in customers; people are watching and they are making big money as a result. Ismail Fathi, manager of a well- known restaurant in Mohandessin, says that since they began advertising that the restaurant was showing matches on big screens profits have increased by 70 per cent. He notes that even married couples come to watch the matches. "The wife eats in silence and the husband watches the match. It's as if they aren't sitting together. But at least he took her out." Experience, of course, counts, and for couples whose marriage spans one or more World Cups wives are perfectly attuned to football etiquette. Men used to come home from work and sit in front of the TV with the remote glued to their hands, expecting only a plate of food to be placed in front of them. Otherwise wives could do exactly as they pleased, just as long as their plans did not include TV. This year things are even better, now that most men have to go out to watch the match, and their wives don't even have to watch them watching.
