Athletes and football supporters demonstrate near the Manassa monument demanding the resumption of Egyptian league football. (Photo by Mohamed Omar) Professional football players marched along with a group of other athletes to the presidential palace on Sunday. The group sat outside the gates and demanded to return to the Egyptian Premier League, the highest level of club football in the country. Their demonstration in Heliopolis added a new voice to the ongoing debate about whether or not to resume the league. The league is currently canceled because of the Port Said massacre, in which at least 72 supporters of Al-Ahly, a Cairo-based team, were killed in violence after a match with at Al-Masry's Port Said Stadium. Many suspect that the killing was allowed to happen as retribution for the role Ahly fans played in the revolution. The athletes on Sunday chanted “the people want the league again," but that is not true for all, not even for some of Egyptian football's biggest fans. The Ultras Ahlawy, the diehard supporters whose members account for most of those killed in Port Said, have been consistently demonstrating in the hopes that the league will not begin until after a decision has been reached in the Port Said trial. Earlier in October they surrounded the Sports Ministry and chanted, “Ahly! Ahly! No return to the league!" A week later they went so far as to storm Al-Ahly clubhouse. The debate in the streets is also playing out in a Port Said courtroom. On Sunday, the trial continued in the case. The defence attorneys are currently in the process of stating their clients' cases. In addition to the athletes, media groups and club management have also advocated for the league to be resumed, arguing it is a huge money and job generator. This weekend, possibly in an effort to cool the heated mood surrounding the ministry, Minister of Sports El-Amry Farouk on Saturday morning flew fifty mothers of boys who had died in the massacre to Saudi Arabia for Hajj. Mohammad Saad, editor and chief of the Al-Ahly fan website said, “some people say that the ministry is doing this to gain some sympathy, to help let the league come back. I don't know. This could just be a good move by the ministry for the families."
