Table Of ContentC 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
