31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002
Issue No.571
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 Jan. - 6 Feb. 2002 Issue No.571 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Standing against time
Cairo Stadium has faithfully stood guard over Egyptian football for over 40 years but, as Alaa Shahine finds out, time has not been kind to Africa's largest stadium
Last August, Spanish football powerhouse Real Madrid visited Cairo to play a friendly game against Egyptian team Ahli. The venue: Cairo Stadium. The home side won 1-0, but after the match Real's coach Visenti Del Bosque had his excuses ready.
"We were facing a very good team, but we played in very hot and humid weather, not to mention the bad condition of the pitch," he said.
Del Bosque was not the first coach to slam conditions at the stadium. In 1994, then Ahli coach Englishman Allan Harris, officially asked for all home matches to be played at the Arab Contractors Stadium instead, due to what he described as the "deteriorating situation at Cairo Stadium."
Nevertheless Azmi Quritam, chairman of Cairo Stadium Committee, has always been quick to deny such allegations. "We have staged several international events at the stadium and nobody has complained about the pitch before," he told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"We have to comply with FIFA regulations regarding the height of the grass which should be 2.5 centimetres at all times so that we can host international football events," he added.
According to experts in stadium design, the condition of the pitch is the least of Cairo Stadium's problems. "If you ask me, they should demolish the stadium and build a new one," Simon Inglis, a British journalist and football infrastructure expert, told the Weekly during a visit to Egypt last week.
"But you didn't need me to tell you that," he continued. "Watch TV and see what modern stadia in England, Italy and even South Africa are like nowadays. The situation at Cairo stadium is like having a very old car. Sooner or later, you reach the point at which there is nothing to be gained from spending any more money on it. You find yourself obliged to buy a new one."
clockwise from top) The construction of the Cairo Stadium in 1957; the inauguration ceremony in 1960 (photos: A. Masraff); the historic game between the Ahli and Barecelona clubs played in 1961 at the Cairo Stadium (photo: Antoune Albert); Everything a stadium should be: Old Trafford Stadium, Manchester United's official venue (photo courtesy of the British Council in Cairo); the Cairo Stadium today (photo: Hany Reda)
Egypt needs a new state-of-the-art stadium, he added, not only to host international events but also to "provide comfort for spectators and attract more people to the game."
Egypt has already put in its bid to host the 2006 African Cup of Nations, and is also likely to bid for the 2010 World Cup, which will be staged in the African continent for the first time since the championship was founded in 1930. In both bids, however, Egypt faces stiff competition from South Africa, a country with more advanced football infrastructure and stadia.
"I've been to South Africa and their stadia are more advanced than Egyptian ones. They are very strong candidates and their only problem is the high crime rate," said Inglis.
Inglis was visiting Egypt as part of "Football Nation," an exhibition explaining the British football experience held under the auspicies of the British Council. The event was staged at Cairo Stadium's main indoor hall. It was meant to showcase the British experience of developing modern soccer facilities, especially stadia.
"The exhibition has toured several countries including Saudi Arabia, China and South Africa," explained Inglis. "We are here to prove that England has more to say in terms of football than just Manchester United and David Beckham," he added.
Inglis is the author of Sightlines, a Stadium Odyssey, which has become something of a football stadium bible.
"I would say that Cairo Stadium is a typical 1960s German- designed stadium, which was perfect at the time, but is now highly outdated in terms of design and technology," Inglis said.
Cairo stadium first came to life in 1960, when it was inaugurated by late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser. The stadium's maximum capacity is some 80,000 spectators.
Over its relatively long history, the Stadium has borne witness to several moments of local and international football history. Chief among these was Egypt's decisive 1-0 victory against Algeria in the 1990 World Cup qualifiers, a result which propelled Egypt to the finals of football's most prestigious tournament for only the second time in history.
"There have been matches when the stadium took in more fans than its official capacity allowed, such as Ismaili's match in the final of the African Champions League in 1969," recalls Azmi Quritam.
Forty-two years after its inauguration, however, it seems that Cairo Stadium needs a drastic revamp.
While most of the world's state-of-the-art soccer stadia have made the switch to being all-seater venues, along with modern, clean and safety-conscious facilities, Egyptian football fans are still obliged to put up with the bare minimum of facilities. They take part in dangerous waves on the concrete terraces with thousands of others. These conditions make a family day out at a stadium appear like a rather risky expedition indeed.
"Looking at Cairo Stadium, the first thing that strikes you is that the concrete benches on which fans sit need to be replaced by individual seating. You don't have to be an expert to notice that," said Inglis.
Only 30 per cent of Cairo Stadium's terraces are equipped with individual seating, while the rest is still home to the old- fashioned concrete benches. "These benches do not comply with FIFA regulations and are not comfortable for fans," explained Inglis. "They make it impossible to count the number of people inside the stadium and, more importantly, the benches themselves can be dangerous. Fans can trip over them and there would be a major hazard if there was a crush and the concrete were to collapse."
The Cairo Stadium's Quritam blames the fans. "We could install individual seats instead of the concrete terraces, but that would cost us millions of pounds, and fans would damage many of the new seats every match. I cannot risk squandering public funds," Quritam said.
Two years ago, supporters of the Ismaili club -- enraged by their team's defeat in a league match against Zamalek -- threw 30 iron garbage barrels from the top of the stands. "That damage cost us a lot of money to repair. They broke seats, and a new seat costs about LE180. We had to spend LE120,000 on replacing seats at the stadium's main indoor hall, which is designed for games like handball and basketball. I can't imagine how high our losses would have risen had we installed an all-seater football stadium," the stadium director added.
According to Quritam, public attitudes and behaviour are also the reason he has not installed a modern computerised ticketing system -- a much-needed device to control the huge numbers of fans who attempt to enter the stadium without tickets.
"We once had this type of system in one of our small halls and it was destroyed by the public. I cannot do this at Cairo Stadium, as it would cost around LE4 million and could easily end up as trash," he argued.
In Building For The Future, British stadia expert Chris Britcher writes that it took a tragedy before British stadia went from trailing in world standards to being "the envy of the globe" today. In 1989, more than 90 fans died during an FA Cup semi-final match between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool at Hillsborough stadium, Sheffield. They were crushed to death by inadequate crowd control and crash barriers erected to deter crowd invasions.
Both clubs and politicians decided that steps needed to be taken. All top-league clubs were instructed to switch to all-seater stadia. Although the costs were huge -- around 600 million sterling -- the results have certainly paid off. "Fans are no longer treated like second-class citizens in dire conditions and now crowd trouble has been dramatically reduced. Soccer stadiums are no longer an unwelcoming venue for families and women," Britcher noted.
England is soon to demolish its legendary Wembley Stadium to replace it with a more advanced stadium. In Egypt, too, it is being argued that perhaps preserving our sports heritage would be best served by both developing Cairo Stadium and building more advanced national stadiums. Such moves would make it possible for Egypt to host the prestigious events it is striving to attract.
According to sources at the Egyptian Football Association (EFA), a new national stadium is scheduled to be built just outside Cairo in 6th of October City. "It will be a 80,000-seater stadium to strengthen our World Cup bid," Hisham Azmi, an EFA board member, told the Weekly .
The new stadium is expected to cost around LE350 million to build. "We know that the Ahli and Zamalek sporting clubs are also interested in building new stadia. We are aiming to convince them to join with us and a consortium of businessmen to form a joint stock company in order to provide the funding required for such a stadium," Azmi revealed.
The new stadium is expected to be accompanied by the kind of revenue- generating facilities that have become common in Europe, such as a hotel, theatre, restaurant and conference hall.
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