Inas Mazhar reports on a ministerial shake-up in the country's sports establishment As he stepped into office, Hassan Sakr, the new head of the new National Council for Sports, said the upcoming African Nations Cup was his top priority. On only his second day on the job, Sakr was meeting with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 25th ANC tournament scheduled to kick off in Egypt on 20 January. Sakr took office just last week when, as part of a major cabinet reshuffle, the Ministry of Youth, which supervises sports in the country, was cancelled and two separate national councils were established in its place: the National Council for Sports with the 55-year-old Sakr as chairman and the National Council for Youth with Safieddin Mohamed Kharboush as chairman. (The now disbanded Youth Ministry was founded in 1999 and Alieddin Hilal was its first minister; its most recent was Mamdouh El-Beltagui. Previously it was called the Supreme Council of Youth and Sports with a chairman. Youth and sports were two bodies within the structure. Each body had a president). The two new councils will be completely separated for the first time with two independent budgets. However, for the first six months, they will share the same budget. During that period, the employees of the former ministry will occupy the same place, the headquarters of the Ministry of Youth, on the 17 floor. Sakr is on the second floor; Kharboush on the 12th. The two chairmen will retain the titles and authority of a minister. The two councils will be affiliated directly to the prime minister. Each council will comprise 15 members. The names will be announced by the middle of the month, after the feast. Sakr said that separating sports from youth was good for both sectors. "It gives you a free hand to concentrate on one issue. It shows that the government is aware of the importance of sports and that it needs to be separated in order to make progress and improvements." In his meeting with the LOC, Sakr emphasised that the ANC comes as the top priority on his agenda. He said the whole nation is looking forward to the ANC this month. 'There is no time. Indeed we are running out of time. I'm here to solve any problems that might come up in the coming days. The success of the event is our main concern. "According to the president and the prime minister's instructions, we have the green light to go ahead with any sort of reforms for the sake of Egyptian sports," Sakr added. Sakr was given a detailed oral report on the ANC preparations from the LOC president Hani Abu Reida who briefed the minister on what has been finished, the final touches and the obstacles remaining. Sakr also watched a video presentation by Amr Wahbi, the tournament's stadiums' organiser, on the plan set up for the entrance and exit of spectators from the refurbished Cairo Stadium. The plan aims at filling the 74,100-seat stadium in 135 minutes. The study also showed how quickly officials, players, media and spectators will flow into stadiums and the route each will take from home in order to reach the venues quickly. Wahbi also made a presentation of how traffic congestion will be eased. However, Wahbi told Sakr the plan cannot be carried out without the approval of the security officials at the Ministry of Interior. Abu Reida updated Sakr on two meetings held in December involving security officials and the Cairo governor in which the same presentation was made. The security personnel were pleased with the plan but said they needed to study it for approval. Tournament Director Khaled Abdel-Aziz informed Sakr that the LOC had seen remarkable cooperation from the governors of all venues where the ANC will be played -- Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Ismailia, and that all are looking to make the event spectacular. At the meeting, Sakr pointed out the items that needed government intervention to finish. In the evening he and Abu Reida visited Cairo Stadium and met with officials. Another major concern for Sakr is an Ahli-Zamalek reconciliation. "I'm really concerned with the bad blood that has come between the two clubs in recent months, either among the officials or the respective fans." The relationship between the two top powerhouses of sport in Egypt worsened recently especially after Zamalek's former president Mortada Mansour accused Ahli fans of attacking him and his family at their home and injuring his daughter after Zamalek's defeat to Ahli in the African Champions League semi-final in Cairo in November. The ties worsened during the LG Cup last week which Egypt won after beating Uganda and Senegal. Zamalek fans started cursing Ahli's super star Emad Meteb. The player was unable to concentrate and asked coach Hassan Shehata to replace him. Ahli fans replied by shouting abuse at Zamalek's Ibrahim Said. The verbal volleys against the two players, both members of the Egyptian football team, drove the stadium's officials to call on the spectators by microphone to be loyal to the national team for the sake of the players and the ANC. "This relationship can't go on this way," Sakr said. "We have to bring the clubs' officials and the spectators together and understand that the coming period requires that they forget their rivalry and to instead support the national team. The tournament will not succeed if the national team does not win and we have to give the team the moral support to do that. We won't be happy if their rivalry is transferred from the stands to the national team." Sakr, who met Samir Zaher, the president of the Egyptian Football Association, on Monday, plans to meet officials from the two clubs this week. Apart from the ANC, Sakr said the Olympic Champions' project, a new law governing sports bodies, preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games and Egypt's bid to host the 2007 Arab Games are other issues on his agenda. Sakr, a former handball star in Zamalek club and the national handball team in the seventies and eighties, was known as a gentleman on and off the court. He received the Order of Merit for Sports from former President Anwar El-Sadat. He promised that 2006 would be better than 2005 in terms of achievements and progress.
