The fallout from Egypt's failed 2010 World Cup bid continues. Reem Nafie reports The disillusionment and anger over Egypt's failure to obtain a single vote in support of its bid to host the 2010 World Cup was still very much in the air a full week after the announcement was made. A parliamentary investigation into the bid fiasco, which began last Saturday, involves questioning a wide-ranging selection of officials responsible for the bid file. Each bid committee member is being questioned separately by the parliamentary committee, which will then submit its report to Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour. Sorour is also awaiting a report being prepared by the Central Auditing Agency regarding Youth and Sports Minister Alieddin Hilal's breakdown of how the budget allocated for the bid was spent. Hilal submitted those figures to the CAA just a few days after FIFA's decision was announced, and the CAA said it would need two weeks to verify them. The media, meanwhile, has been alternately mentioning figures ranging from LE10 million to $4 million as the amount Egypt spent on the failed bid. Sherif Radi, who was in charge of the bid committee's finances, was quoted as telling the parliamentary committee that most of the figures he'd seen in the press had been greatly exaggerated. The actual amount, he said, was no more than LE10.6 million. Everything being reported about the investigation, however, should probably be taken with a grain of salt since the investigation is not open to the public; the published accounts were leaked either by the committee members themselves or else those being questioned by them. In his testimony, Hilal appeared to lay the blame on FIFA's executive committee, which he said had "deceived" Egypt. Several papers quoted the minister as saying that while several FIFA members offered to sell Egypt their votes in return for $67 million, "I adamantly refused and insisted that Egypt would play fair." Bid coordinator Hisham Azmi, who faced the committee after the minister, said he had never heard of any $67 million bribery attempt. According to Hilal, the people he had selected for the bid committee were highly qualified members of the Egyptian Football Association who were also very familiar with FIFA. Hilal also told daily newspaper Al-Missa that there was a big difference between the "outcome of the bid" and Egypt's ability to actually host an event like the World Cup. Unmoved by Hilal's testimony, several members of the investigative committee called for the minister's resignation. Although the committee has the right to formally ask for a minister's resignation, it was decided that any such request would be made only after all the deliberations were complete and the entire matter discussed by parliament as a whole. By Tuesday, Al-Wafd was quoting Hilal as saying he was willing to resign from his post as youth and sports minister, and go back to teaching political science at Cairo University. Several of the bid officials who spoke to the committee, meanwhile, painted a rather candid picture of why the bid effort may have failed. According to bid committee member Sahar El- Hawari, she had initially been responsible for publicising the bid abroad. Later, however, she said she had then been asked to limit her efforts to speaking to foreign ambassadors in Egypt. El-Hawari had been told that "others" would be responsible for foreign public relations. Although El-Hawari declined to identify who those "others" were, she did tell the investigative committee that they were "incompetent", and did not "do their job, which could be one of the reasons why Egypt was not recognised internationally". Amal Gamal, the bid committee's communications coordinator, also accused those committee members charged with handling both foreign publicity and communications with FIFA's executive committee with failing to perform their job properly, and hence wasting the efforts of those who had worked hard to promote the bid within Egypt itself. Talaat Geneidi, the former head of the ministry's sports sector, Mohamed El-Siagi, head of the bid committee, and Essam Abdel-Moneim, chairman of the Egyptian Football Association, were also among those questioned by the parliamentary committee. Committee Head Mahmoud Ibrahim said the investigative report would be "submitted to Sorour as soon as possible since he is anxious to resolve the issue before this year's parliamentary session ends" on 1 July. Once both reports are discussed by parliament, the assembly will decide if any of the bid committee members are "guilty of dereliction of duty", and would hence have to "stand trial", said Zakariya Azmi, the prominent National Democratic Party MP who initiated the call for an investigation. The media, meanwhile, continues to be vociferous about the issue. On Sunday, the weekly independent Sawt Al-Umma 's main headline said, "Egypt is demolished 0-24 at the World Cup bid." Bus driver Magdi Mohamed agreed. "Why were they appointed in the first place if they were known to be incompetent? Or do we just start judging and criticising people when it's too late? Even if the bid committee is found guilty by parliament, what's done is done. It will not change the outcome," he said.
