Hani Saied's rejection to join Zamalek less than a week after signing an initial contract with the club opened the latest abysmal page in our peculiar Egyptian footballing history. The player stated that he'd rather join Ahli or even retire from football than play for the whites taking the incident into another everlasting player/Zamalek/Ahli/Ismaili/ FIFA conflict. Similar incidents occur nearly everyday involving the same parties but with different players. The outcome is also always the same. It's a very weird phenomenon of self-destruction that always ends up with the loss of a great talent and it seems that Egyptians are somehow doing their best to end any potential we ever had as a leading African football nation. In this article I will just try to take a deeper look on the disturbed manner and behavior Saied and the clubs fighting over his services adopted since the start of the whole drama. Saied who previously played for Bari, Messina, Fiorentina and RAEC Mons proved that he didn't learn the slightest rules of professionalism from his time in Europe. The player who's a 28-year-old adult, willingly and gladly agreed to join Zamalek only to retreat a day later after 'illegally' capturing the initial contracts he signed with the club ( as claimed by Zamalek keeper Mohamed Abdul-Monsef ). We are facing a real disaster if Abdul-Monsef's claims are proved right. How on earth would a player leave a club less than 24 hours of declaring his excitement about joining it?!! Like everyone he knew Zamalek's troubles before signing for the club and when he changed his mind he backed out totally disrespecting the club and their fans. And what have we got now… an international player stealing a contract he signed with one club in order to join another, two Egypt players accusing each other of stealth, bullying and dishonesty on the pages of every newspaper and more disgrace to come. Ahli have formally stated that they are not involved in Saied's issue. However, informally we all know that it was a hefty last minute offer from the Red Devils that convinced the sweeper to ditch Zamalek.
This mixture of improper manners, actions and reactions has become a regular pattern not only in football but in all aspects of Egyptian life. Everyone's talking about Ahli, the great sporting castle preserving rightful ethics and morals. Where were these ethics when they approached Saied despite knowing he already signed a contract to join Zamalek? They didn't care about anything and they tried to sign him in the same pathetic manner they recently signed Hussein Ali from Petrojet with. Despite officially selling the player and receiving the transfer's full fee, Ismaili's football director Sayed Al-Qammash couldn't hide his anger towards Ahli and their part in the problem. Al-Qammash publicly announced that Ahli have become the tyrant of Egyptian football By luring players to adopt such behavior like stealing and backing out of an official contract in Saied's case. I don't necessarily agree with Al-Qammash, but it's apparent now that Ahli's growing greatness and massive popularity have pushed some board members to totally disregard players' and the whole country's interest for the sake of their own aspirations. For a change and unlike Ismaili's Al-Qammash, Zamalek officials have stayed silent about the problem. The club is hoping the Egyptian Football Federation's decision that Saied should only be listed as a player of their own should be enough to solve the issue. This mixture of improper manners, actions and reactions has become a regular pattern not only in football but in all aspects of Egyptian life. The whole community is ruled by … of ignorance, greed, fanaticism and disrespect. Hani Saied's problem isn't the first and won't be the last of its kind. Now we all need to somehow find a way to adapt with the new rules of the Egyptian football scene, where the unbelievable is possible and selfishness is the one guideline everybody is adopting.
