AFCON 2019 is upon us

It’s not a bad time to be an Egypt football fan: World Cup 2018 performance, Mortada Mansour and Mohamed El Neny aside, these appear to be the best of times for the Egyptian football scene. With Egypt now hosting the African Cup this year for the fifth time from 21 June – 19 July on the back of a series of footballing successes, we’ve decided to dedicate this month’s Your Wealth to the “beautiful game.” DISCLAIMER: we will exclusively refer to the sport as football and not ‘soccer.’ Readers from North America, we will look forward to reading your emails.

So, to kick off the issue, we’re going to list out all the stuff we’re thankful for as far Egypt’s recent football history is concerned:

• Mo Salah scoring in the final of the Champions League last Sunday.
• Pretty much everything Mo Salah has done (the list is too long to cover in one issue).
• English Premier League footballer Sarah Essam winning the Golden Boot for Stoke City’s Development Team.
• Zamalek FC winning the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup for the first time in the club’s history.
• Egypt making it to the World Cup 2018 (subsequent performance notwithstanding).
• Egypt making it to the final of the African Cup 2017.

What if you just don’t care? We have to begrudgingly acknowledge those who’ve just never got into it. And that’s ok (no, really.) Still these tips on how to enjoy football are well worth reading. You all also, could just fake it and get into the spirit of things and make it easier for the rest of the world.

Let’s get ready for AFCON: The 2019 32-team AFCON is set to kick off on June 21, with the Pharaohs set to face Zimbabwe in the tournament’s only group stage game on opening day. Egypt will then take on Congo on June 26 and Uganda on June 30 in two subsequent group stage games. CAF’s official website has the full schedule of fixtures, list of teams, and group standings. You can hover over to the website’s “sync to calendar” feature on the top right-hand side of the page for a personalized schedule.

Where can you get tickets? Online ticket-booking company Tazkarti has a platform for fans to secure seats Football enthusiasts will have to sign up for a fan ID to attend the tournament.

How much? Tickets prices for all Egypt matches, which will be at Cairo Stadium, will be tiered based on seating. Expect to pay EGP 150 for third class, EGP 400 for second, and EGP 500-800 for first class, depending on where you are sitting. Box seats will cost EGP 2,500.

Africa’s “stadium of horror” is reborn: Attention has fallen to the stadiums that will host AFCON 2019, but one of them holds a special place in the heart of every Egyptian football fan: Cairo International Stadium, a.k.a as the stadium of horror because of the special atmosphere fans create in it which helped Egyptian clubs and national teams win titles and dominate African football. Inaugurated as a 74,000 seater in 1960 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the stadium was named for the president and opened with celebrations of the eighth anniversary of the 1952 Revolution, according to Al Ahram Weekly. The stadium, built at a cost of EGP 3 mn over three years, was the biggest in Africa and the Middle East at the time, and boasted an electronic Arabic-English scoreboard and four massive floodlight towers. It was renamed Cairo Stadium in 1970.

Gone are the days when fans would squeeze on sitting benches to fill the stadium beyond its capacity. The Cairo sports landmark has underwent major renovations in 2004 and 2008 to become an all-seater stadium in order to host major tournaments, like AFCON 2006, and the FIFA U-17 and FIFA U-20 in 1997 and 2009 respectively. Fans can expect a totally different experience with a metro station functioning just outside the stadium, with new seats, new pitch improved facilities and even newly-painted residential blocks surrounding it and newly paved roads. We are looking forward to see the stadium come back to life after being closed for long months. This year’s tournament is just the latest chapter in the long and eventful life of one of Cairo’s great landmarks.

Egypt’s football excellence BS (before Salah). It’s hard to remember a time before the whole nation’s entire football achievements boiled down to only Mo Salah, although that was a pretty recent development. What non-followers of Egyptian football may not realize is that Mo Salah was the crescendo of a generation of excellence. This absence of realization was pretty evident in the lack of accolades players like Hossam Ghaly and Mido, who played abroad before Salah, and in top tier teams, received. A piece published in 2016 by True Africa did not mention a single Egyptian in its dream team of legendary African footballers. Perhaps Mohamed Aboutrika, if he hadn’t peaked at a later age and failed to venture beyond the local scene, would have been up for an honorable mention.

A tribute to the Egypt dream team: We are all grateful for the Hassan Shehata and Aboutrika “golden generation” that crowned us AFCON champions in three back-to-back editions. In 2006, 2008 and 2010, the synergy between veterans El Hadary, Mohamed Zidan, Mohamed Barakat, Ahmed Hassan, Mohamed Shawky, Moteab, Hosny, and Amr Zaki was nothing short of a marvel.

Hear it from the fans: For us, this was an unmatched team, who showed us a gripping performance against Brazil in 2009, and who also prompted Tunisian Issam Al Chawali’s “el Song w Zidan,” one of the most iconic, border-line poetic pieces of football commentary ever (watch, runtime: 1:40). Al Chawalli’s spontaneous piece was uttered when Zidan, against all odds, overpowered Cameroonian defender Rigobert Song to gift Mohamed Aboutrika a 76-minute lead in the 2008 AFCON final.

Al Arabiya Sports has an excellent roundup of Egypt’s AFCON victories, which you should definitely check out.

The English like to claim they invented the game…but did they really? At the risk of alienating some of our red and white fans, we couldn’t resist this fun piece of trivia: football may have actually been invented over two millennia ago in China. While the rules for the modern game didn’t start to get laid out until the middle of the 19th century, the Chinese were playing the game cuju or “kickball” for over 2,000 years. And according to the BBC, they were as mad about kickball as modern fans. Everyone from the lowliest street urchins to the emperor played the game. There were even professional teams with managers, coaches, and captains. These teams would be followed by clubs of dedicated supporters. There are even well-established rules for etiquette and sportsmanship.

How different is it from the modern version? It’s two teams trying to kick a ball into a 10 m high netted goal, passing to teammates and tackling each other along the way. The team that gets the most goals wins the game. Sound familiar? A notable difference is the absence of a goalkeeper.

No cultural appropriation here. Move along, folks: While the sport remains obscure outside of China, the UK has given credit to cuju as the original football. "While England is the birthplace of the modern game as we know it, we have always acknowledged that the origins of the game lie in China," said Kevin Moore, director of the National Football Museum.

What can this teach us about the modern game? In it’s 2000 year history cuju has taken many forms and rules, including a version where the objective is to keep the ball volleyed in the air (think foot volleyball). When considering the fact that football in 1860s included a lot of hand play (that’s where Aussie Rules Football evolved), we can certainly be sure that the game we love today will not be same a few centuries down the road.

You can check out this short (but blurry) explainer from Discovery on the history of cuju (watch, runtime: 1:19).

For too long, football’s been all about the men: As with many sports, the men’s football game tends to be valued much more highly than the women’s. Coverage and viewership of women’s matches are usually much lower than men’s, and significantly fewer resources are allocated for their accommodation, facilities and training. Women are often forced to play on artificial turf, unlike their male counterparts. Some female players have argued that what the women’s game lacks in speed, it makes up for in technical prowess. But there’s no denying that for many viewers, it is still a less compelling game to watch.

Could this be about to change? In 2018, the Women’s Super League (WSL), the female equivalent of the English Premier League (EPL), went professional, making this year the first season of full-time players working as professional athletes. Recently, Barclays signed a GBP 10 mn agreement with the Football Association to sponsor the Women’s Super League (WSL), the female equivalent of the English Premier League, the FT says, in what is widely thought to be the biggest corporate investment in UK women’s sport. The sponsorship sum is supposed to transform the WSL into the world’s top female footballers’ league. It will also support the FA Girls’ Football Schools Partnerships, which improves girls’ access to football in schools.

Equal pay for equal work is still a long way away: Despite these strides, the WSL lags behind the EPL, financially. WSL athletes earn on average GBP 27,000 compared to the GBP 2.64 mn earned by their peers in the men’s Premier League, according to this Guardian piece.

Regardless of the economics, we’ll still be watching this summer’s FIFA World Women’s Cup in France, which will be held from 7 June – 7 July. Egypt will not be playing in the tournament, unfortunately. England’s team has its share of fans here in Enterprise, though and we will see the them take on Scotland, Argentina, and Japan in the group stages. Any England football fan tired of the perennial disappointment of the men’s team should break out their St George flags and back the women’s team.

• Residential electricity prices could increase by 30-60% after the next round of subsidy cuts that will take place at the start of the next fiscal year in July.
• The Finance Ministry is studying a proposal that would set a limit on the healthcare tithe paid by businesses to fund the new universal healthcare system.
• Capital requirements for commercial banks could rise tenfold to EGP 5 bn under proposed amendments to the Banking Act.
• The EGP hits a fresh two-year high, breaking the EGP 17 / USD 1 barrier.
• EEHC could sell stakes in its electricity production and distribution subsidiaries to the private sector, under an asset management program. This follows news that Zarou and Edra Power Holdings both expressed an interest in taking over the operation of Egypt’s three Siemens-built, combined-cycle power plants.

Football matches that go down in history: Whether it’s the skill of the players, the drama they provoke on or off the pitch, or a shock upset that turns everyone’s expectations on their head, some matches will simply never be forgotten. This pick of 10 of the greatest from Eurosport includes Liverpool vs Milan in the 2005 Champions’ League Final and Benfica vs Real Madrid in the European Cup Final of 1962. Closer to home, Egyptian fans may fondly remember Ahly’s game against Ismaily in the 2002 Egyptian League or the sweetness of our 4-0 victory over Algeria in AFCON 2010. Of course, many of the most famous matches of all time have taken place during the World Cup, which has been held every four years since 1930 (except during World War II), attracting bns of viewers.

Know Your Customer processes: offering security through building mutual trust. When it comes to managing your hard-earned money, the importance of trust can hardly be overstated. Customers need to know their bank has strong security systems in place, and organizations need clear, verifiable data to protect all their clients from fraud or corruption.

That’s why CIB has a clear KYC framework in place. Following standard international practice for banking institutions, credit companies, and insurance agencies, we ask for detailed information so we can verify our clients’ identities. This helps us to protect both individuals and companies from the risk of financial crime.

Having current records helps us protect you: We ask that our Wealth clients keep their personal records at the bank up to date, by supplying us with the following:

• A valid National ID (for Egyptian nationals) or valid passport (for foreigners)
• An HR letter (in the event your employment status has changed)
• A utility bill (in the event your permanent address has changed)
• A recent Commercial Register (for companies)

For CIB, the security and safety of your savings and personal information is our highest priority. To update your information at any time, simply download the form, supply all relevant data, sign at the bottom of all pages, and either submit it to one of our branches or send it by mail to your branch or to P.O. Box 2340 Al Ataba.

For more information: visit the CIB website.

Is the GCC getting a reputation for having a corrupting influence on the sport? With international football associations, governments and players being slammed recently in the press for trying to bribe, tax-evade and financially-manipulate their way to the top, football has developed a reputation for corruption. In our neck of the woods, it is Qatar and the UAE that are getting increasingly negative attention over allegations of corruption in the sport.

The rise of Al-City: Since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed’s takeover of Manchester City in 2008, the club has risen to become one of the best teams in Europe. Winning four titles, three FA Cups and four League Cups, the club’s newfound petrodollars have translated into domestic dominance for the team that was once used to living in Manchester United’s shadow. But the club is now facing a possible one-season ban from the Champions League for violating UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules — a sanction that would prove a heavy setback for a club with long-held ambitions of becoming the champions of Europe.

Information published on Der Spiegel’s Football Leaks platform last year contained evidence that the club’s owners had devised a number of creative ways of getting around financial rules. According to the leaks, executives inflated the value of the club’s sponsorship agreements, and set up shadow companies to hide losses from UEFA in a bid to avoid FFP penalties. Now, a UEFA investigative board led by former Belgian PM Yves Leterme has recommended that the club be kicked out of the Champions League for at least one season. A final decision now rests with UEFA’s adjudicatory panel, which may not be made before the start of next season. You can read Der Spiegel’s four-part investigation here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.

Allez Doha: Since 2011, Qatar Sports Investment have been the proud owners of Paris Saint Germain — the biggest team in France, which routinely walks the domestic league but fails to clear the last-16 in Europe. The Qatari royal family has flooded the club with riches on an even bigger scale than the Al Nayhans’ at Manchester City, helping them to assemble a team of world-beaters that have never really lived up to their potential. In a single transfer window, the club signed Neymar for a world-record transfer fee of EUR 222 mn and brought in 19 year-old wonderkid Kylian Mbappé for EUR 180 mn from rivals Monaco.

As well as allegedly bribing government and FIFA officials during their 2022 World Cup bid, PSG’s owners have breached FFP rules. Like City, PSG have used backdated sponsorship agreements to artificially increase the price and were forced to pay a EUR 60 mn fine in 2014. In 2017 a new investigation was launched following the exorbitant fees paid for Neymar and Mbappé but the club was later cleared of any malpractice between 2015 and 2017.

Who watches the watchmen? The fact that neither of these clubs has been met with harsher sanctions from UEFA is largely due to FIFA’s general secretary Gianni Infantino. More Football Leaks revelations reveal how the FIFA boss worked to ensure that they were not booted out of the Champions League and instead were handed only minor penalties.