Sisi splashes out $85,000 for Egypt’s World Cup qualifiers

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has gifted $85,000 to each of the Egyptian football players who won Egypt’s World Cup qualifier against Congo Brazzaville over the weekend.

Egypt’s national team secured the win and qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1990, which will be held in Russia in 2018.

The president announced the player’s gift on Monday when he met the Argentine coach, Hector Cuper, and the players.

“Maybe we don’t play beautiful football but we are at the World Cup and that’s the most important thing,” Cuper said.

Al-Sisi praised man of the match, Mohamed Salah, who secured the Pharaoh’s win by scoring a penalty in injury time to secure the qualification.

I am proud of all the players but especially of Mohammed Salah who was brave enough to take the crucial penalty,  the president said.

“We are determined to make the country and continent proud in Russia,” said Salah who plays in the English Premier League. “I am very happy to lead Egypt to a World Cup after 28 years and to make 100 million [Egyptians] proud of us.”

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Egypt has won seven Africa Cup of Nations titles but has only qualified for the World Cup twice, first in 1934 and then 1990.

Despite the support given to the national team by Egyptians and Arab fans who celebrated the win, football clubs in Egypt have not enjoyed such support since their vital role during the uprising of 25 January 2011.

“Regime! Be very scared of us, we are coming tonight with intent; the supporters of Al Ahly will fire everything up. God almighty will make us victorious, go, hooligans!” was one of the football chants of Al Ahly’s supporters that spurred on people during the uprising.

The traditional rivalry between Al Ahly and Zamalek clubs was put aside as both sets of fans stood together during the revolution in a crucial role to bring down long-time ruler Hosni Mubarak.

The generous sums of money handed to Egypt’s national team by the president are likely to stoke concerns that adequate funding from the government is failing to reach Egypt’s most impoverished. Nearly 29 per cent of Egyptians live below the poverty line with more than 49 per cent of Egyptians in Upper Egypt unable to access basic necessities, including food.

Speaking earlier this year, Sisi blamed the country’s woes on Egypt’s overpopulation crisis as one of the major challenges confronting the state, saying that the population is now four and a half times what it was in 1952.

However, it is widely believed that the underlying causes for the increasing poverty are due primarily to mismanagement, endemic corruption as well as the state’s economic reforms and austerity measures adopted to fulfil the conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund.