Parliamentary committee to assess Football Association's recent actions

CAIRO – 10 July 2019: Egypt's Parliament formed a new committee linked to the youth and sports committee to investigate the failure of the Egyptian Football Association reflected in the early loss of the national team in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

The new committee will hold a meeting in the coming days with Youth Minister Ashraf Sobhy to assess the actions made by the Football Association from the World Cup in 2018, where the national team miserably failed to make it to the second round before the third group game was played,to the 2019 AFCON's loss.

The deputy head of the Parliament's youth and sports committee explained that the meeting will include assessing the performance of the associationand holding them accountable for alleged favoritism, adding that the committee will not tolerate the humiliating knock out of the national team in the tournament held in Egypt.

Favoritism

He said that the association had adopted favoritism in choosing the players and handling the administration.

"We lost the tournament. We lost the values we promoteby the return of AmrWarda," he said, referring to cancelling the decision to banattacking midfielder Warda from playing in the national team overcomplaints of sexual harassment.

"There was a miscarriage besidesthe administrative error; the same carelessness and negligence that occurred in the World Cup occurred in the African Cup of Nations and we did not learn from the mistakes," he stated.

He also referred to the technical staff, which excluded talented and special players and favoredsome players "seen byall experts asunqualified for representing the team compared to others."

Egypt lost at their home in the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in 33 years against South Africa in the round of 16.

Egyptian Football Association President Hany Abo Rida sacked the Egyptian national team coaching staff in the early hours of Sunday.

Abo Rida, as well as many board members, resigned from their position.The Egyptian players let down the fans who packed the Cairo Stadium to support the team.

Recently, General Prosecutor Nabil Sadek ordered referring the complaints filed against officials of the Egyptian Football Association to the Interior Ministry’s General Department of Public Funds Crime Investigation Unit.

The complaints accuse the officials of charges including squandering public money. Sadek scheduled the session to open extensive investigation into the complaints and recall those who have submitted them.