Since I returned from Zurich from the now infamous 2010 World Cup vote, I have been asked many times over: what happened? Two questions in particular keep cropping up. Why did Egypt leave the Swiss city with nothing but one big goose-egg? And why are Egyptians comparing this defeat, one in football, with the one suffered in the 1967 War? In both cases Egyptians were deceived by officials. In 1967, Egyptians trusted their army and believed official slogans that we were winners. I wasn't around for the defeat nor did I experience the humiliation but I can understand how bad it must have felt. In 2004 in Zurich, were humiliated because we were deceived by our sports officials. They created a dream and wanted us to live it and believe it. In truth, the local campaign was so good we thought we would win. But in Zurich we discovered that we had been living a dream for the past year, an illusion which was shattered when FIFA President Joseph Blatter announced that South Africa had won the right to host 2010. Twenty-four people voted. South Africa received 14 votes, Morocco 10. Some of us waited for Blatter to say how many votes went to Egypt. A quick addition, which reminded me of school days, was all I needed. I said to my colleagues out loud: "Wake up. Fourteen plus 10 equals 24. We got zero." Our jaws fell, mouths and eyes wide open; we looked at ourselves in disbelief. While in the days leading up to the vote we knew deep down that we would probably not win, we never imagined it would come down to this. We could almost feel the pity being sent our way by our South African colleagues seated next to us. Probably nobody in Zurich was more embarrassed than myself and my two colleagues Amin El-Doubali of Al-Ahram and Amr Moheb of Al-Ahram Hebdo. The three of us were representing the Egyptian media in addition to five others from the Egyptian Nile Sports channel. (Eight media representatives from Egypt compared to 55 from Morocco and 35 from South Africa). Why the zero? There were many reasons, some of which were mentioned last week by my colleague Alaa Abdel-Ghani. Personally I think the reason lies mainly with our bid committee members who lacked professionalism compared to South Africa and Morocco. Look, for example, at the delegations which were sent. South Africa was led by presidents past and present and a Nobel laureate. The Moroccan team had a prince and the president of Senegal and the former prime minister of Spain. Save for Omar Sharif, members of the Egyptian delegation would not be recognised even in Egypt. These people convinced us that we would win, that the majority of FIFA's executive committee members would vote for us. Our so- called scouts had been touring the world, bringing back reports to Youth Minister Alieddin Hilal claiming that everything was Okay and that we had secured at least enough votes to take the voting to a second round. And the minister believed them. One bid member boasted that he was running a perfect campaign and that he was the only person capable of collecting enough votes for Egypt because of his close relationship with the FIFA executives. He told the media that he had travelled all over the world and that he had covered more kilometres than pilots. He was, as such, considered the leading personality on the committee and was given all sorts of responsibilities: spokesman, minister's consultant and coordinator. We were confident of victory because we had somebody like this individual among us. But the truth revealed itself in Zurich. The individual in question was an employee of FIFA, not a member of the association as claimed, and there's a big difference. And his supposedly close ties with FIFA executives did not go beyond shaking hands. Our problem was that when we selected someone to run our campaign we selected the wrong person. If this man is indeed an employee in FIFA how could he be capable of handling such an important task as winning a World Cup bid? That was our big mistake as was stated by some executives. The same people also said that while they had met many of Egypt's bid committee members over the past several months, none of them had directly asked them to vote for Egypt. In the FIFA technical report on Egypt issued days before the announcement of the winning nation, in the part concerning the bid committee, it said that while its members demonstrated a good sense of organisation and flexibility, if Egypt was granted the 2010 World Cup, it would be necessary to follow up on the committee's work to ensure that the event would be run properly. Isn't that proof enough that we selected the wrong people? But none of them will admit the wrong they have done us and the country. Their defence and arguments since the loss have been silly and unfounded, blaming FIFA for accepting bribes when there is absolutely no proof, or using conspirational theories as a reason for the defeat, as if we were so important. If such claims are valid, then what have these people been doing all year and how did such theories get past our vaunted FIFA member after claiming he knew everything about FIFA, up to the brand of wine each executive liked most. What an invaluable piece of information. We should have known from the beginning that the decision would be based on politics and money. We should have known that FIFA wanted to compensate South Africa for its one- vote loss to Germany to host the 2006 World Cup. Either we knew about all this and did nothing about it or we did not know at all. In either case, we can only blame ourselves for the consequences. Since Egypt refused to beg for votes or impose any political pressure as some of the others might have done, then we should not entered the bid from the beginning. And please let's not say that we had to apply lest the coming generations would not have forgiven us. Posterity won't forgive or forget this embarrassment. by Alaa Shahine
