How (not) to make an Olympic champion

Six years after launching the state's Olympic champion project, Egypt secured just three medals at the recently concluded Paris Olympics — half of what was achieved at the previous games.

This wasn’t supposed to be the case. 

The National Talent and Olympic Champion Project was launched in July 2018 when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met with Youth and Sports Minister Ashraf Sobhy to discuss preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, following Egypt’s remarkable achievements at the Mediterranean Games. 

Sobhy described the project as one of the most significant national projects undertaken by the Youth and Sports Ministry to advance and develop Egyptian sports by discovering and nurturing talented generations of athletes through modern scientific methods and specialized centers tailored to the project’s sports and age groups.

According to Sobhy, this project was to be "Egypt’s future and hope" for the 2024 Olympics and the upcoming 2028 games. The minister continued to visit the project’s site and meet with athletes. In April, the ministry hailed the project as one of its achievements over the past decade.

Egypt's performance in Tokyo had been its best ever, as Egyptian athletes took home six medals. There was hope that the country was finally progressing in sporting competitions.

This optimism, however, was shattered in Paris. Egypt’s largest Olympics delegation ever, bankrolled at cost of over LE1 billion — an increase of LE777 million over the Tokyo delegation — secured only three medals.

The controversy surrounding the delegation wasn't solely about the financial cost, a it was mired in a series of scandals even before it left for Paris, beginning with the debate over cyclist Shahd Saeed and culminating in the arrest of wrestler Mohamed Ibrahim "Kisho," who had won a medal in Tokyo but failed to achieve any success in Paris. He was detained on charges of "sexual harassment while intoxicated," which were later dropped.

Despite all the funds and festivities, Egypt failed to find the sought-after Olympic champion. The reason lies in the structural issues within Egyptian sports and the federations governing them, which do not facilitate this success. Therefore, any success Egypt aims for hinges on understanding and seriously addressing these structural drawbacks.

The Olympic Champion Project involves 135 committees composed of experts in various sports, touring Egypt’s governorates and conducting tests at youth centers and some shaabi sports clubs, ultimately selecting 20 children in each sport to begin the Baraaem (primary) stage. With an annual budget of LE33 million, the project funds the salaries of 3,000 athletes and coaches involved.

The process of concocting an Olympic champion, under this project, involves four stages: starting with Baraaem, where children aged five-to-six-years-old are selected, followed by Nashein (juniors), then the Safwa (elite), and finally, the Olympic Champion stage, where athletes are sent to their respective sports federation to represent Egypt in international competitions.

Sobhy stated that he approved a budget of LE1.1 billion for the Paris Olympics preparations, for the years running from 2021 to 2024, in addition to funding sports delegations. He said that 2022 saw 900 sports delegations participating in international events, with ongoing support for planning programs and federations' budgets in coordination with the ministry's specialized committee and relevant administrations.

The ministry awards LE1 million to the winner of an Olympic gold medal, LE750,000 for a silver medalist and LE250,000 for a bronze medalist.

Medalists also receive a lifetime monthly stipend of LE3,500 for a gold medal, LE2,500 for silver and LE2,000 for bronze, under regulations in place since the Sydney 2000 Olympics. These stipends are not inheritable and capped at three per Olympic or Paralympic champion. However, there is no limit on the number of awards for medals.

Given that funding is a persistent issue, Sobhy welcomed the involvement of private entities in athlete sponsorship, emphasizing that measures have already been taken through the ministry’s coordination with sports federations. "We have [private] institutions that have contributed to sponsorship programs for champions, in addition to companies we established through the private sector to manage champion athletes professionally,” Sobhy stated. 

However, according to athletes across various sports, these sponsorships often fall short due to issues within the different federations. Many prominent athletes have broken their silence and spoken out about the challenges they face. Omar Assar, one of Egypt’s top table tennis players who participated in the Olympics, took to Facebook to criticize the table tennis federation and its president, hinting at corruption. This prompted the ministry to issue a statement in response, noting that it is currently inspecting all sports federations. Similarly, swimmer Farida Osman posted a video demanding that sports federations, rather than athletes, be held accountable for the disappointing Olympic results.

Each of these federations is managed by a board of directors elected by members of the general assembly. These members, representing the sports clubs involved in the sport, hold voting rights in the elections for the federation's president and board members. According to Sports Law no. 71/2017, "The sports federation is a sports entity with legal personality, consisting of clubs and sports and youth entities engaged in activities in a particular sport. Its purpose is to organize and coordinate these activities, and work on promoting the sport and raising its technical level."

The federation, in consultation with the general assembly, sets the election date, but it is the federation president who takes charge of the elections. This is the primary reason behind the corruption within sports federations, a member of the former cycling coaching staff says to Mada Masr. "The federation president arranges with clubs’ board members to ensure his re-election along with a group of members, in exchange for certain privileges," the staff member says. "The athletes representing Egypt on national teams are often from clubs loyal to the federation president or the coach."

Former vice president of the boxing federation Mohamed Toba tells Mada Masr that there was a proposal to implement an eight-year limit, meaning the federation president could not serve more than two terms, but this has yet to be enforced. "As a result, some federation presidents have held their positions for over 20 years, making it easy for them to control the elections," he adds.

The cycling federation is one such federation, as its president has held his position for 20 years. This federation also found itself at the center of public controversy just before the Olympics.

A few days before the delegation departed, a video began circling on social media. In the video, which was filmed three months earlier during a national championship race, cyclist Shahd Saeed collided with her teammate Ganna Eliwa. 

The accident left Eliwa with multiple fractures and a concussion. Saeed was able to continue the race and took third place. 

Many accused Saeed of intentionally causing the collision, and the controversy escalated to the point where the Youth and Sports Ministry had to intervene. The ministry announced that it had contacted the Egyptian Olympic Committee to reassess the incident.

However, Saeed's issue extends beyond the accident to a broader lack of transparency in selecting athletes for Egypt's national team. A former official on the coaching staff of Egypt’s cycling team that participated in the Paris Olympics told Mada Masr that the national team coach and the federation president "sacrificed her in her recent crisis," adding that the real issue was her inclusion in the team from the start, which he found "extremely strange" given that she had not won a national championship.

Saeed plays for the Military Sports Institution Club in Suez. Several players and coaches have pointed out that most of the national team players come from this club, as its coach is also the national team coach. "Extremely talented women were very poorly treated simply because they were in another club,” the former official on the national team’s coaching staff says. As a result, the source adds, many players, including Ahmed Khaled Saad, “one of the most talented players, left the country six months ago due to humiliating treatment.” Saad was allocated a salary of only LE1,000 despite playing in the top tier, the source says, which led him to leave for England. The national team coach managed to convince some of the players who had left to come back, “but they were treated poorly upon their return and subsequently quit the sport," the source adds. 

According to Saad’s father, Ahmed didn’t even get the allocated LE1,000. Speaking to Mada Masr, the father says that his son received an award of not more than LE500 every six months. "He didn’t even receive the awards for the championships he won, and I’m sure they were divided [among the federation officials]. It reached a point where he contacted me during the World Cup asking for money for food, even though there were banquets for the officials at the camp," the father says.

Ahmed’s father says that his son fled to England after returning from the World Cup qualifiers because he was insulted by a federation official when he tried to collect his salary. "My son is known to be the most talented cyclist of his generation, and he won so many championships," says the father, adding that the national team coach "pleaded with him to return several times, but my son refused."

Cycling encompasses various disciplines — road, track, mountain, freestyle, cycle-ball and para-cycling — each typically requiring its own coaching team. However, the federation appointed a single coach for all these teams — the coach from the Military Sports Institution Club in Suez — according to a cycling coach at one of the sports clubs who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. This, the coach says, is why all the national team players come from that club.

The cycling federation has seen numerous crises over the years. The coach believes that the sport's level has significantly declined since the death of youth national team player Islam Nasser during an international race in South Africa in 2017 due to a heart condition. "It’s no surprise that the sport would fail significantly in the Paris Olympics," the coach says, noting that road races were halted between 2017 and 2022 after Nasser’s death, leading to a sharp decline in cyclists’ performance. "No one was held accountable for Islam's death, and the sport was sacrificed entirely," they say.

A few months before the incident, while the national team was in a training camp in Switzerland, Nasser fainted. According to the coach, the medical report, written in French, advised that Nasser "should no longer cycle," but the federation president ignored the report. The coach says that during the preparation camp for the South Africa championship in which Nasser competed, he informed the national team’s coach at the time that Nasser was not physically fit to participate. "But the coach didn’t take my words seriously, and Islam returned dead from the championship," the coach says.

This incident reflects the level of negligence within the federation's management, according to the cycling coach and the former official on the national team’s coaching staff. 

The cycling federation received financial support from the Union Cycliste Internationale to purchase new bikes, according to the two sources, "But the bikes, upon arriving, were improperly stored in a metal container,” which posed a problem considered the the wheels were made of carbon, says the former coaching staff member. "As a result, all the bikes were damaged, and the athletes had to train with the old, worn-out bikes."

The cycling coach explains that the bikes should be acquired through a legal tender process to ensure transparency, especially given their high cost — sometimes up to LE450,000. "It’s widely believed that the bikes used by the national team in the Olympics are a grant from the Egyptian federation […] purchased from a company, but this is not true," the coach says, explaining that some of the bikes were obtained through the international union, with the rest sourced from companies.

An official in the current cycling federation, speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, confirms the improper storage incident. "They were stored in a container where temperatures exceeded 70 degrees Celsius," the official says. 

In 2022, the federation imported a shipment of bikes worth over US$200,000, the official says, but the bikes did not meet the specifications and were not suited to the athletes’ measurements. "The strange thing is that the bikes arrived without the invoices, and no one knows where the papers or the money went,” the official says. “When we inquired about the purchase request sent by the federation for the bikes, no official responded to clarify."

The federation receives millions from the Youth and Sports Ministry as support. It was allocated LE44 million in support for the Olympics, according to the cycling coach. Despite the funds, the former official says, most cyclists face a lack of adequate support from the federation during training camps leading up to important championships. 

For example, during the 2021 World Championship in Egypt, 46 teams from all over the world participated. While these teams and delegations stayed in 4 and 5-star hotels, the Egyptian team was housed at the Leaders Preparation Camp, the former official says. "There were eight people per room, and the hotel facilities were very poor. Some athletes didn’t even eat during the camp,” they add. 

Given these conditions, sources agree that it is impossible for there to be a national team that can compete internationally.

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Before selecting the Olympic delegation, the International Olympic Committee allocates a specific number of athletes from five continents to participate in the games. The national team coach then selects the athletes most likely to win medals. However, boxer Metwally Ahmed from the Eastern Company Sports Club tells Mada Masr that the reality is quite different. "In boxing, for example, most national team athletes come from the Military Sports Institution Club, even though Egypt is abundant with talent. If an athlete reaches the national championship final but has issues with the national team coach or the federation head, they might be deliberately made to lose just to keep them off the team,” Ahmed says. “For instance, many talented athletes have been suspended under the pretext of doping, but we all know this is just a pretext given personal conflicts between the athlete and the coach or the federation head."

The core issue is that these federations do not invest seriously in their athletes. With scarce sports sponsorships and a lack of infrastructure to involve the private sector in sports (except for popular sports, where sponsorships are still limited to major teams), many Egyptian athletes are driven to seek opportunities abroad. For example, hours after winning a silver medal at the African Championship in Tunisia, wrestler Ahmed Fouad Baghdoda suddenly disappeared from the national team camp on May 20, 2023. The Egyptian delegation later learned that he had traveled to France. Baghdoda was part of the National Talent and Olympic Champion Project, but his father blamed the wrestling federation for his son’s departure, citing neglect and poor treatment, describing the pressures he faced as "unbearable."

The wrestling federation, in particular, has a track record of such incidents. In August 2022, wrestler Mohamed Essam left the national team delegation in Italy. In 2019, wrestler Hossam Hassan disappeared from the national team camp in Finland, following in the footsteps of his brother Ahmed, who had disappeared from the camp in Finland in 2017. That same year, Tarek Abdel Salam left the Egyptian wrestling team to join Bulgaria’s team, winning a gold medal at the European Championship. At the Paris Olympics, Adam Aseel, a gymnast representing Turkey, was originally Abdel Rahman al-Zamzamy or Abdel Rahman Magdy, who was a member of the Egyptian gymnastics team but unexpectedly traveled to Turkey. The gymnastics federation head Ehab Amin was apparently surprised by Abdel Rahman's decision and said at the time that he "received state support that no other athlete like him has received." Amin tried multiple times to persuade him to return, but Abdel Rahman initially refused and eventually ignored further communication.

A former national wrestling team coach, speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity due to fears of repercussions, says that the wrestling federation had warned him about the potential flight of the wrestler "Kisho" before a championship in Bulgaria in 2019. "I was told to keep an eye on his passport because he might escape," the coach says, explaining that "at that time, Kisho had no sponsorship and received no financial compensation from the federation, which severely affected his psychological state."

After winning a medal at the Tokyo Olympics, Kisho secured sponsorship from a company. But the challenges did not end there. The former wrestling coach says that Kisho had conflicts with both his coach and federation officials before the Paris Olympics. 

From 2019 to 2021, Kisho trained with an Egyptian coach, during which he won his first world championship and a medal at the Tokyo Olympics. However, following a dispute with his coach, Kisho was excluded from sponsorship for over a year. As a result, he sought out a foreign coach, but his performance declined, leading him to eventually return to Egyptian training, according to the former coach. They add that the federation does not invest in top athletes. Instead, companies selectively sponsor a few Olympic or World Championship medalists.

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The sports sector in Egypt frequently stirs controversy due to its ongoing scandals and wide public interest in them. Whenever Egypt fails in a sports event or when news of a controversial crisis emerges, official institutions and media outlets rally to call for a restructuring of the sports system and the eradication of corruption.

This was evident during the 2004 World Cup Zero scandal — the term that prevailed in local media outlets when Egypt failed to secure any vote for its bid to host the 2010 World Cup, which was awarded to South Africa. 

The reform calls also resurfaced last month following the death of football player Ahmed Refaat, and the corruption allegations against several senior officials and media figures in Egyptian football, which eventually led the Public Prosecution to investigate the crisis.

The pattern also emerges with each failure to meet Olympic targets. "After most Olympic games, the bodies responsible for sports in Egypt face criticism and sometimes accusations of negligence and lack of seriousness from media outlets and members of the Youth and Sports Committee in Parliament," wrote Ali Eddin Hilal, former Youth and Sports Minister during President Hosni Mubarak's era.

The government body overseeing sports in Egypt has undergone continuous and unjustified changes in substantive terms over the past fifty years, shifting between a Youth and Sports Ministry, a Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, and two separate councils for youth and sports. This has disrupted the stability of sports policies, systems and regulations.

Moreover, the ministry does not have jurisdiction over sports activities in schools and universities, requiring coordination between the relevant ministers, which has been governed by the personal relationships of those holding these positions, according to Hilal. 

Under the decentralization policy adopted by the state, youth and sports services were transferred administratively from the ministry to the governorates in 2017, with the ministry’s role limited to designing and funding youth and sports programs.

When it was reestablished in 1999, the Youth and Sports Ministry adopted the Olympic Champion Preparation project, focusing on individual sports and supervised by various scientific and technical committees, according to Hilal. The project continued until the ministry was dissolved again, and replaced by the National Youth Council and the National Sports Council in 2017.

Currently, and for the past five years, the ministry has been running the National Talent and Olympic Champion Project, focusing on nine sports — seven individual sports: boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, judo, taekwondo, athletics and table tennis, and two team sports: basketball and handball — according to Hilal.

These sports demand proper infrastructure and funding to achieve the desired outcomes. However, contrary to this need, and in line with the state's withdrawal from various sectors, state support for sports has significantly diminished in recent years.

Data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) indicates that, between 2012 and 2021, the number of clubs affiliated with ministries and governmental authorities has halved, and those affiliated with companies in both the public and public enterprise sectors declined by 15 percent.

The lack of government investment in sports infrastructure has led to a 33 percent decrease in players at public sports clubs and a 51 percent drop at youth centers between 2013 and 2021, according to the Center for Alternative Policy Solutions.

The government's alternative strategy has been to encourage greater self-funding initiatives and private bank and company sponsorships, while utilizing sports facilities in youth centers to generate revenue. Between 2018 and 2023, it implemented 1,141 investment projects, including sports fields, swimming pools, event halls, commercial shops and gyms, which yielded around LE9 billion in revenue. However, these projects have not translated into benefits for local communities, where youth centers are in disrepair and struggle with financial shortages, according to a paper published by the Center for Alternative Policy Solutions.

Reduced spending has led to a decline in the quality of sports services provided by schools and youth centers, resulting in the near-exclusive participation in sports by financially capable families in private sports clubs, which saw a 22 percent increase in the number of players between 2013 and 2021, according to CAPMAS data.

The sports crisis in Egypt is not limited to discrimination against low-income individuals, but also includes stalling in enabling women’s participation. Discrimination against women is reflected in the low participation rates in sports among young women, according to a joint study by CAPMAS and UNICEF. For instance, female participation in rural areas does not exceed 10 percent. Some governorates lack women's teams or players altogether, such as Beheira, Wadi al-Gadeed and the Red Sea.

Efforts to empower the private sector to advance sports in Egypt have not succeeded, as such empowerment requires amendments to the laws and administrative structures governing sports clubs in Egypt. It also demands diversification of income sources to support sports club budgets, including match tickets, broadcasting and boosting audience attendance, among other areas, and revenue streams that can be leveraged to attract investors, according to previous statements by sports guidelines expert Talal Abdel Latif to Mada Masr.