C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L EGYPT’S FOOTBALL REVOLUTION EMOTION, MASCULINITY, AND UNEASY POLITICS CARL ROMMEL University of Texas Press Austin C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L Copyright © 2021 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2021 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 utpress.utexas.edu/rp-form The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/ NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rommel, Carl, author. Title: Egypt’s football revolution : emotion, masculinity, and uneasy poli- tics / Carl Rommel. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020054711 ISBN 978-1-4773-2317-5 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4773-2318-2 (library ebook) ISBN 978-1-4773-2319-9 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Soccer—Political aspects—Egypt. | Soccer—Social aspects—Egypt. | Sports—Anthropological aspects—Egypt. Classification: LCC GV944.E3 R66 2021 | DDC 796.3340962—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020054711 doi:10.7560/323175 C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L For Karin In memory of Jagger C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L Any social project that is not imposed through force alone must be affective in order to be effective. William Mazzarella, “Affect: What Is It Good For?” Everything has become politics; there is no fun left. Hamada, passionate fan of the Cairo club al-Zamalek since the early 1990s, March 2013 C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L CONTENTS List of Illustrations x Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliterations xiv Introduction: Emotions, Politics, and Egypt’s Changing National Game 1 PART I. BUBBLE Chapter 1. Normal Nationals and Vulgar Winners 29 Chapter 2. Fanatical Politics and Resurging Respectability 59 PART II. ULTRAS Chapter 3. A Revolutionary Emotional Style 85 Chapter 4. A Respectable Revolution Measures Its Violence 109 Chapter 5. The Insurmountable Double Bind of Siyasa 139 PART III. AFTERMATH Chapter 6. When the Game Feels Like Politics, It Doesn’t Feel Like Much at All 165 Chapter 7. No National Significance, No Political Concerns 191 Conclusion: An Emotional Revolt Trapped in Politics 211 Postscript: Magnificent Mohamed Salah and the Ill-Fated 2018 World Cup 219 Notes 237 References 253 Index 271 C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 0.1 Map of Cairo’s football geography 22 Figure 1.1. Still from Ahmed Shoubair’s talk show Aqarr wi A‘tarif, Modern 50 Figure 1.2. Still from Medhat Shalaby’s talk show Masa’ al-Anwar, Modern 51 Figure 1.3. The football-saturated front page of al-Akhbar al-Yum, 9 February 2008 54 Figure 2.1. The Egyptian player Ahmed Eid Abdel Malek and fans celebrate Emad Moteab’s last-minute goal against Algeria at Cairo Stadium 60 Figure 3.1. Al-Zamalek’s Ultras White Knights performing a dakhla at Cairo Stadium 94 Figure 3.2. Al-Zamalek’s Ultras White Knights in action in Cairo Stadium’s talta yimin 96 Figure 4.1. Stencil of Anas Mohyeldin, the youngest Port Said Stadium tragedy martyr 113 Figure 4.2. Murals commemorating the victims of the Port Said massacre on Cairo’s Muhammad Mahmoud Street 115 Figure 4.3. Muhammad Abu-Treika showing sympathy with the people of Gaza after scoring in the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations 127 Figure 5.1. UA07 members celebrating the Port Said court verdicts outside al-Ahly Club 141 Figure 5.2. Timeworn Ultras Ahlawy mural in Abdeen, central Cairo 157 Figure 7.1. Young men playing football on Abdeen’s al-midan 204 Figure 9.1. Poster of Mohamed Salah outside a coffee shop in Abdeen, central Cairo 224 Figure 9.2. Facebook meme mourning Egypt’s humiliating exit from the 2018 World Cup in Russia 226 C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is the end result of a decade of researching, thinking, discussing, and writing, and a large number of people have supported me along the way. First and foremost, I want to thank all my friends and interlocutors in Cairo—fans, players, coaches, journalists, state bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, coffee shop owners, and many more—who told me the football stories that I retell in this book. By sharing generously what you knew, thought, and felt about your lives, your country, and your favorite sport, you are the ones who made me grasp the weight and scope of Egypt’s football revolution. The vast majority of you are not identified by your real names in the pages that follow. Your anonymity does not change the fact that I am forever grateful. This project grew out of a doctoral dissertation in social anthropology at SOAS, University of London. At SOAS, I met many people to whom thanks are due. My supervisor Stephen Hughes’s careful way of steering me—loosely at most times, firmly when needed—gave me the confidence to find my own way through readings, fieldwork, and writing. My exam- iners Walter Armbrust and Will Rollason pinpointed strengths as well as limitations and convinced me that I should rework my thesis into this book. Kit Davis, Caroline Osella, Richard Fardon, Caitlin Robinson, and Matt Fish read and commented on drafts at the Post-Fieldwork seminar. Among many lovely peers, I especially like to mention Alessia Costa, Giulia Zoc- catelli, Nadeem Karkabi, Safitri Widagdo, Andrea Pia, Seamus Murphy, and Helena Pérez Niño for friendship, debates, dinners, drinks, and lodg- ing. A special thank-you goes to Vale, Diego, Michele, and Alessandra, who cared for me during the last destructive months before submission. In Cairo—my hometown for five of the last fourteen years—count- less friends pushed me and my research along: Adam Almqvist and Helena Hägglund; Ben Prestel, Nora Danielson, Sarah Wessel, and Steve Thorpe in the soon-to-be-famous Cairo League; Marine Poirier, Marie Vannet- - zel, Sixtine Deroure, Youssef El Chazli, and Giedre˙ Šabasevicˇiute˙, with- out whom I would not have survived New Orleans; Ilka Eickhof and Taha xi C O P Y R I G H T E D M A T E R I A L xii | Acknowledgments Belal; Aymon Kreil, Dalila Ghodbane, Naïma Bouras, Jakob Lindfors, and Maria Malmström; Amro Hassan, Sherif Hassan, and Ahmad Saied; Dalia Abdel Hamid; and Riham Hamada, the best language teacher one could ever imagine. When a book project is ten years in the making, a vast number of col- leagues have inevitably commented on chapter drafts and presentations. With the risk of forgetting some of them, I would like to thank Samuli Schielke, Aymon Kreil, Alice Elliot, Fuad Musallam, Ben Prestel, Moritz Buchner, Benno Gammerl, Michele Serafini, Sarah Green, Birgit Meyer, Lucie Ryzova, Joseph Viscomi, Phaedra Douzina-Bakalaki, Ronnie Close, and Sanaa Alimia. My editor Jim Burr at the University of Texas Press offered precisely the combination of enthusiasm and direction that I needed to see the project out. At the Press, I am also thankful to Sarah McGavick and John Brenner. I want to direct a special thanks to Johan Wollin for god knows how many late-night readings and edits, and for his insistence that language and style are serious matters. Without Jessica Winegar’s encouragement and advice at a critical moment and superb sug- gestions at a slightly later stage, this book would not have taken the shape and form it eventually did. Money was always going to be needed to live a life and write a book. As a doctoral student, I was given financial support by the SOAS Research Fellowship, the SOAS Fieldwork Grant, Birgit och Gad Rausings Stiftelse, Anérstiftelsen, Stiftelsen Lars Hiertas Minne, Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stif- telse, the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, and Sixten Gemzéus Stiftelse. Later on I received a writing grant from the Camel Trust and held fellowships at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin and the Walter Benjamin Kolleg in Bern. The University of Helsinki has been my home institution during the final three years of research and writing. I am indebted to my brilliant colleagues in the Crosslocations project, most especially to Sarah Green—who always made sure there was time to finish what needed to be finished—and to Philippe Rekacewicz and Lena Malm, who drew maps and took photos. I am also thankful for institutional sup- port provided by CEDEJ in Cairo and the Department of Social Anthro- pology at Stockholm University, and for Karim and Natha’s idiosyncratic perspectives on all things Swedish. My family in Sweden constitutes the bedrock on which this project was built. From an early age, Mom and Dad taught me that the world is large and enchanted, and they encouraged a life-long desire to look, listen, and learn. I also want to thank my brothers Olof and Jacob. I know that they will always be there, no matter where and what; to me that is a very precious