Mohamed el-Haragawy: Promising Egyptian handball talent in Europe

CAIRO – 12 March 2018: Fresh Egyptian handball talent Mohamed Ahmed el-Haragawy is now one of the most important Egyptian names in the world of sports after he joined Switzerland’s RTV Basel.

Haragawy started playing handball in 2003 after being chosen in school to play handball. He then started to play with the Aviation club. Over the years, Hargawy’s talent was being sharpened until he managed to play with the Aviation club’s first team in 2010, winning the Egyptian Handball League title with them three times.




In 2015, he travelled with Aviation to Sweden to participate in a world championship for clubs. Aviation was the only African team there, and the rest were Europeans.

For his notable performance in that tournament, Danish officials from Randers HK contacted Haragawy about adding him to the team. At the age of 19, he managed to pass the trial and book his seat in the first team despite his young age. However, he faced problems with the travelling permissions, which made him return to Egypt to continue with Aviation.



Haragawy’s agent told him that there was a French team that needs a left-handed player to play in the right-wing position, so he went to France in the beginning of 2017 to participate with a second division team in its promotion tournament for a month, and then he returned another time to Aviation to continue the season with the team.

In the summer of 2017, Haragawy played for a Bosnian team and participated in the Balkan Handball Championship. He managed to score 54 goals, which made him win top scorer of the tournament. After that, he travelled to Macedonia to participate in a trial for the best handball team in the country, which went well on the sports level but didn’t on the personal level, as Haragawy said that they didn’t like the Africans on the team. That was in addition to the weak salary they offered, which made him decide to return to Egypt again to play for Al-Maadi club.




RTV Basel’s handball director watched a video of Mohamed’s talent on YouTube and contacted him during one of his visits to Egypt. He met Haragawy at his house and told him, “The team needs to be strengthened with more young talents next season and you may have a chance, but you will take it gradually.”



Haragawy was delivered an official offer to join RTV Basel in January 2018. His joining was postponed for nearly two months due to problems with his travelling permission, which is given by the army, but finally he travelled to Switzerland to join Basel at the end of February.

The Egyptian left wing is participating with the first team of RTV Basel in the most important games of the current season, which determine the final standings of the league, to book a seat among the teams that will participate in the European Champions League tournament next season.