Football is also getting attention from the international media: The Egyptian Football Federation (EFA) is building a new headquarters and will house the national football squad in the same complex, FIFA, football’s global governing body, says in a feature on its website. FIFA is giving the Egyptian association some USD 2.25 mn to help fund the construction. News came as the association’s boss, Gianni Infantino, said he is confident Egypt will manage to deliver a “great African Cup of Nations,” despite having little time to prepare. “Egypt is five months away from hosting Africa's largest continental football tournament … which is expected to revive the football sector in the country and strongly push the ailing tourism sector,” Xinhua adds.

Other headlines worth a skim this morning:

• The inauguration of a Coptic cathedral in the new administrative capital is a step forward, but Egypt has lots of do on the minority rights front, Marlo Safi writes in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal.
• The inauguration of a mosque and church on the same day served to show “Egypt is to be a country where Christians and Muslims can co-exist,” Darrell Bock writes for Dallas News.
• Ramy Essam, famous for his Arab Spring song “Irhal,” has been stripped of his Egyptian passport according to an interview with PRI.
• The Egypt-Israel border fence has served its purpose — but our situation is much different than Trump’s, who used the fence as a model for his US-Mexico wall, Yaakov Lappin writes for the Jewish National Syndicate.