Women on top
As the global magnifying glass is focussed meticulously on Egypt to scrutinise the country's 2010 bid, the spotlight cannot help but shine on the national women's football league. Yasmine El-Rashidi takes a peek
El-Hawary receiving IOC trophy
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It would be hard to talk about Egyptian football without talking about women. And it would be hard to talk about women's football without talking about Sahar El-Hawary. It was not always that way -- the trek to put Egyptian women on the local football map was turbulent to say the very least. And to catapult it further into the blueprint of the blossoming global female football arena was no less trying.
"It was very tough for her," says a sports figure and confidant who asked to remain anonymous. "She put every ounce of energy and thousands and thousands of pounds into it for many years," she says of El-Hawary's quest to get Egyptian women's football officially acknowledged, and ultimately embraced. "She would take her driver and go to the provinces and find girls playing football, or who wanted to, and take them to Cairo, put them in schools, feed them, clothe them, give them the best treatment and lifestyle. She did this for years."
And finally, it paid off.
Egyptian women's soccer not only has an organised league of its own, but has organised for itself a place in the future of the game. While the 1990s were a time of trial and frustration, FIFA's laud of El-Hawary's role, and the future of her creation, made the coming of the millennium a time for much hope and celebration.
By the closing of the last century, the team -- officially recognised by then as the National Women's Team -- qualified for the first women's African Nations' Cup. The qualification came after what the media described as a "startling win". Although it had been their first time to play abroad, competing against one of the strongest teams in the league, the young Egyptian players outsmarting the Ugandan team, winning 1--0 to snatch their place in the cup.
The reaction of he Egyptian public was back then negligible -- the only real celebrations taking place amongst the women themselves.
Perspectives changed when FIFA applauded the team and applauded El-Hawary, and insisted on the creation of the Egyptian Women's Football Federation, which El-Hawary was naturally to head. Things rolled relatively fast from there -- the international spotlight on this women said to be "the iron lady" bringing her much attention and many awards.
In 2001, El-Hawary was nominated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) -- awarded to whoever consistently promotes the advancement of women in sports at all levels. Later that year, she walked home with the trophy, and Egyptian women's football with a new level of public respect.
"It's become very much the norm now," Amira Rachid, a recent graduate who played under El-Hawary on a private team, tells the Al-Ahram Weekly. "When I first went with my friend to her university to play football with Sahar, there weren't that many people and whenever I told anyone they were very surprised."
Things have most certainly evolved since then. Not only does the Women's Football Federation play host to over 12 teams -- up from the early 1990's solitary Hawary creation -- but the scene, so-to-speak, is "happening".
"It's a very popular thing now," says Tamara Anwar, a 17- year-old high school student. "Even if we don't follow the results of the national teams, there are lots of other teams; at the clubs and at schools. In Ramadan there are tournaments for girls. This year there were many more teams than last -- at the Gezira Club. I was on a team with all my best-friends."
It has become part of the trend amongst young girls, teenagers, and even post-adolescent young women to adorn themselves in the latest sports wear.
"The change in the attitude of a country really towards women and sports is very clear," says Fatma Osman, a mother of three who teaches at a public primary school. "You see the girls after school looking much more boyish than they did before. In a nice way!" she smiles. "I suppose as the movie and pop stars become more health conscious and sporty, so too do the younger generation that follow them. It has become very normal for girls to spend a lot of time playing sports. It wasn't always that way. Growing up, we were raised to think that girls were delicate and too fragile for things like football!"
Things have changed. Girls are no longer flimsy creatures, and no, the boys no longer laugh.
"At first they used to make fun of us a bit, but now it's 'aa'dy' (the norm)," Anwar says.
Women's football has transcended the boundaries of what once was the stereotypical cultural norm, and El-Hawary's role has transcended the borders of Egypt: she is now a key figure in the attempt to put Middle Eastern and Arab women's football on the national and international maps.
Egypt's female players have helped propel other neighbouring states into embracing their own women too -- two years ago it was announced that the Islamic Republic of Iran would allow its women to play football, a regional landmark for the history of women's sports.
"Women can play football too!" El-Hawary laughs. "Everyone around the world should realise that we have women football stars just like the men and that if the men don't achieve anything for Egypt at the international level there are always the women."
While the league has grown and blossomed in both its structure and reach, and the national team has tallied up an impressive number of matches to serve as experience and practice, the field is still literally young.
"We have come a very long way, but we still have a much longer way to go," El-Hawary says. "I won't stop. I'll keep climbing the ladder to do what I can for these girls and for Egypt. I believe that every step we take, we do it for Egypt, not ourselves."
That, perhaps, is what epitomises the status of football in Egypt. On the country's millions of streets, millions of children play football on make-shift "pitches" with make-shift "footballs". Many of them will never quite make it, even so much as into a real, full-size, grass pitch. They continue to play, however, because -- as a stream of observers and critics have repeatedly retorted -- football is in any Egyptian's blood. The football-identity -- intricately intertwined with Egyptian national identity -- has seeped into homes and brought girls too out on the street to play. And even if they don't make it into the arms of the woman behind their literal football "coming out", it is a part of the culture that history has proven nothing can take away.
"We must do things for the country," Minister of Youth and Sports Alieddin Helal told the Weekly. "Whatever it may be -- in this case the World Cup bid -- we should better the country for ourselves and our people, not for FIFA."
The case of women's football is now internationally recognised as the perfect example.
"The battles have been great and I thank those who helped me as well as those who stood in my way because, as they say, where there's a will there's a way," El-Hawary says. "And Egyptians know that, I think, more than anyone else."
[El-Hawary is one of the members of the bid file committee.]
