Mansour, Manager Relationship: From Marriage to Divorce

CAIRO –30 July 2017: After the dismissal of Zamalek’s former coach Augusto Inacio by Zamalek’s president Mortada Mansour, Egypt Today decided to look at the life span of Zamalek’s manager under Mortada Mansour.


Zamalek’s president Mortada Mansour is known for changing many coaches in a very short time, but before he changes the coaching staff Mortada passes through 4 stages.

The first phase is similar to a short honeymoon where Mortada Mansour appoints the manager addressing the qualities of the new manager and how he will add to the team. Usually, the manager performs great results in the first few games. So, Zamalek’s president takes that opportunity to praise the coach and criticize the previous coach.

The honeymoon ends when the team encounters some drawbacks in the results or when Mortada Mansour sees that the manager is taking all the credit for the success without him receiving any recognition. In that stage, Mortada finds any problem within the team and starts to publicly talk about it. For example, he could say that the manager favors some players over the rest of the team or that the performance of the team isn’t that good or the results are not improving. This phase is very important for Mortada as he prepares himself to slowly change the coaching staff of the team due to the poor results.

As in any relationship between two married couple there is that pre-divorce stage where both hope to improve the relationship before choosing to separate from each other. This is the case in that stage where Zamalek’s president decides to interfere by appointing another assistant coach hoping that the assistant coach would help the manager. However, this decision usually means that this assistant coach will be the interim manager after the sacking of the current manager. During that period the overall atmosphere in the team is very heated and the results continue to worsen.

The fourth and last stage is when Mortada Mansour waits for the perfect moment in order to sack the manager saying that the only way out is to appoint another manager. In that phase, Zamalek’s president begins looking for a new manager in order to repeat the four stages.

It is good to mention that ever since the arrival of Mortada Mansour as Zamalek’s president in April 2014, Mortada Mansour appointed 19 new managers.