25 - 31 October 2001
Issue No.557
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 25 - 31 October 2001 Issue No.557 |
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Half-time
Wanting to be a millionaire
Reaching the semi-final of the African Champions League has made Ahli $450,000 richer. The tournament has always been the most famous of the three football continental club championships but it was only recently that its prize money started equalling its prestige. The eventual winner, to be known sometime in December, will pocket a cool $1 million, an amount which perhaps raises few eyebrows in Europe, where player deals have reached somewhere near the stratosphere, but is simply boggling in this cash-strapped part of the world.
Strangely enough, when there was no championship prize money to speak of, Egyptian clubs won the trophy more than anyone else. European clubs had yet to tap the African football market, leaving the continent's best clubs largely intact. Ironically, during that era Egyptian clubs flourished in African championships.
But by the start of the 1990's, the best players Africa had to offer moved camp to the greener and more lucrative pastures of Europe, thus diluting the talent of the clubs they left behind. Ironically, that decade saw Egyptian sides in the African scene deteriorate noticeably.
But less than full strength African clubs should be good news for Ahli as it readies to meet Tunisian giants Esperance in the semi-final. Apart from the loss of one defender to the Germans three years ago, Ahli has not been drastically affected by the African player drain. That the side has been left relatively intact should earn dividends.
But Esperance, a regular campaigner, has reached the final the last two years, getting as close as a club can to the trophy without actually hoisting it. It will prove a much tougher opponent than its North African neighbour, Algeria's Chebab Blouizdad, which Ahli had to beat, and did, to qualify for the semis.
That the win against the Algerians was achieved in Algeria was no small feat considering how long it's been since an Egyptian outfit defeated a North African club on the road. The win was not just impressive but all-important too; had Ahli lost on Sunday, it would have been overtaken by Ivorian champions ASEC which upset group leaders Petro Atletico of Angola.
While the victory gave Ahli the three precious points it needed to reach the last four, the win was also notable for what it did not produce: violence. There were serious concerns of a repeat of the now infamous Anaba World Cup qualifier in which crowd trouble so disrupted the game between Egypt and Algeria that play was stopped a full 15 minutes. But on Sunday in Algiers, all was quiet on the front.
Despite its semi-final appearance, its first in the tournament in 14 years, Ahli has been hit hard in this championship. It went down in extraordinary fashion to Atletico 4-2 in Cairo, the Angolan side becoming the first club to score more than twice against Ahli in the Egyptian capital. And it was only the second home loss for the club in 46 Champions League matches.
The upset is now history. Today, Ahli looks to win the Pan-African club competition a third time after successes in 1982 and 1987. In the process, it wouldn't mind if its coffers swelled a bit more.
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