Egypt's attempt to host the 2010 World Cup fell flat on its face in Zurich last Saturday. In Cairo, the sense of shock -- in the press, in parliament and amongst the general public -- was palpable. Reem Nafie reports "Not even one single vote?" "How humiliating!" "I thought we would at least come in second." These were amongst the most common reactions to Egypt's failure to obtain a single vote in support of its bid to host the 2010 World Cup. World football body FIFA's executive committee voted on the tournament's location last Saturday in Zurich. Of the 24 members, 14 voted for South Africa, 10 for Morocco, and none (read: zero) for Egypt. In Cairo and across the country, the dismay, disappointment and shock were instant. After all, much talk had been heard about how good Egypt's chances were. For months, the public had gotten used to seeing the red, white and black 2010 bid logo everywhere -- on giant banners, stickers on cars, and signs above highways. Nearly every newspaper had devoted a great deal of coverage to the latest bid news. Egyptian hopes had also received a major boost earlier this month, immediately following the release of FIFA's technical evaluation report, which firmly placed Egypt ahead of Morocco, and nearly neck-and-neck with front-runner South Africa. The media was awash with optimistic predictions: 150,000 job opportunities would be created if Egypt won the bid; the economy would reap at least $1 billion in revenues. Hosting the World Cup was widely seen as a perfect way to solve the country's economic woes. Despite the optimism in the lead up to the vote, most people were also well aware that South Africa would be hard to beat. After all, when South Africa bid to host the 2006 tournament, they lost to Germany by only one vote. It wasn't, then, the fact that Egypt lost that stunned and angered people; it was how badly it did so. "Frankly," said 45-year-old taxi driver Hussein El-Fiqi, "I thought that South Africa had the best chance of winning, because of how powerful they are, and the fact that the FIFA executive committee probably felt bad that they lost the 2006 bid. But I thought that Egypt would be the runner-up. Everyone did." Summing up the feelings of millions, a 20- year-old college student said the 'no' vote tally was "unbelievably horrifying". In parliament, the fallout was equally rapid. Youth and Sports Minister Alieddin Hilal was called in to answer angry inquiries about why Egypt hadn't received a single vote. Zakariya Azmi, a prominent National Democratic Party (NDP) MP and chief of the presidential staff, called for the inquiry on Saturday night, just a few hours after the vote. During Sunday's session, Hussein Megawer, also of the ruling NDP, and 20 other MPs requested that an investigative committee, headed by parliament's Youth and Sports Committee, be formed to question Hilal and members of the bid committee on issues such as "why such a huge sum of money was spent on a cause that produced no outcome and embarrassed Egypt in the international arena." The committee also wanted to know "who was responsible for the deception many Egyptians have been living through over the past eight months." At the Youth Ministry itself, the first head to roll was that of Talaat Geneidi, head of the ministry's sports sector. Although the official line was that Geneidi had turned 60 and retired, his birthday was months ago, and Hilal could easily have chosen to renew his tenure. Instead, Mosaad Abul-Regal was named as Geneidi's replacement. The press, meanwhile, was having a field day. "Who is responsible for deceiving 70 million Egyptians?" screamed one headline. Accusations -- that the bid committee had spent millions on the bid campaign with nothing to show for it -- also started to emerge. Opposition daily Al-Wafd published a detailed account of how an alleged LE50 million was spent. Amongst the most prominent items was a 15-metre tall paper pyramid made out of 20 million messages of support gathered from people nationwide, as well as the big Mohamed Mounir concert held at the Giza plateau and attended by 180,000 people. A multitude of promotional T-shirts and pins were also on the list. On Sunday, veteran Al-Ahram sports columnist Hassan El-Mistikawi criticised bid coordinator Hisham Azmi (a cousin of MP Zakariya Azmi's) for spending millions on promotional trips to the Caribbean, Malaysia and several other places, all of which were seemingly for naught. El-Mistikawi also quoted FIFA executive committee member Ismail Bamagi of Botswana, who, when asked by an Egyptian journalist to vote for Egypt, supposedly said that if he did so, he "would be the only member voting for Egypt, and you are the first Egyptian to ask me to vote for the Egyptian bid." These sorts of accusations prompted Nasr City butcher Adel Hamdi to ask why the bid committee had not "asked for other countries' support, like South Africa and Morocco did?" As if to preempt such queries, Hilal had said, immediately following the vote, that it had always been Egypt's bid policy to "not rely on political or economic pressure". "Everything is about politics," Hamdi said. "How could the Egyptian bid committee have been so naive?" Much of the criticism centred on the fact that while South Africa's delegation included well- known global figures like Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Egypt's major draw was actor Omar Sharif and a 15-year-old schoolboy named Serge Zoriane. FIFA President Sepp Blatter seemed to pour salt in the wound when he said, following the vote, that the "duel ... was between South Africa and Morocco. I think the perception in Egypt was not one that understood they were not in the race. They were good, they were better than good, but they were not in the race." On Sunday, plumber Sayed Ahmed seemed to speak for many when he said, "this is not the first time we have wanted something and failed to get it. I just feel bad about all the money that was wasted, since we could have used it to boost other sectors like education, or even given it to the beggars in the street." Minister Hilal was unavailable for comment up until the Weekly went to press.
