Podcast Interview - April 23rd, 2024
Interview Between Omar Mansour and Rania Ahmed
Transcription Written by Omar Mansour, Published on April 30th, 2024
Rania Ahmed is a researcher interested in the economics and politics of sports, nationalism, and public space. Our discussion focused on one of Rania’s articles, discussing the dynamics surrounding Egyptian football stadiums, and the state-driven processes of militarization, securitization, and "sanitation." She discusses how the Egyptian state has transformed stadiums into highly controlled spaces, employing both physical and digital measures to restrict access and maintain control. This conversation also sheds light on the Ultras, a group of fervent football fans whose organization and solidarity have often clashed with state interests, especially in the wake of Egypt's 2011 uprising. Ahmed explores the state's strategies, including restrictive fan ID systems and media manipulation, which aim to portray the Ultras as a threat to public safety. Through these measures, the state not only curtails political dissent but also seeks to reshape the social fabric of Egyptian sports culture, pushing for an idealized and controlled fan base. This interview examines how state power intersects with sports, public spaces, and social identities in contemporary Egypt.
How would you define securitization in the context of Egyptian football stadiums?
Rania Ahmed — We can describe the securitization of football stadiums and access to stadiums in Cairo, and in Egypt more generally, in three points. This involves militarized securitization and policing, as well as securitization by police and digitized securitization. There is a shift in ownership of the stadiums in Egypt, with most now owned by the military instead of the state or privately. This represents a militarization of football. Additionally, even if the military owns the stadium, the police are responsible for observing and controlling the audience. The third type of securitization is digitized, where you need a fan ID to watch a match in the stadium. This involves submitting an online form to a private company called Tusker, which means "my ticket," where you provide your national ID number. Unfortunately, there is evidence that Tusker collaborates with the police to keep some leaders of organized football fans, the Ultras, out of the stadium. So, we are talking about multiple and intersecting forms of securitization.
Your text mentions the emergence of the Ultras, this group of football fans. Why did these football fan groups emerge, and why are they such a central component of this story?
Rania Ahmed — They emerged in the first decade of the new millennium. While I can't say for certain why they emerged, we can speculate that the relatively less securitized climate in the last decades of Mubarak's rule led to many forms of social and political organization to emerge, including the Ultras. Many committed football fans, more specifically young men, took inspiration from similar organizations in other countries, whether in France and Italy on the other side of the Mediterranean, or in North African countries like Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. This organization had thousands of young men all over Egypt, from Alexandria in the north to Aswan in the south. The two biggest Ultras groups were Ultras Ahlawy, which supports the Al Ahly team, and Ultras White Knights, which supports the Zamalek team. The emergence of such groups revived spectator presence in the stadiums after decades of almost exclusively televised games. What the Ultras did, which was very fresh and new, was reclaim a public space, the stadium, and use it for pleasurable activities like cheering, chanting, performances, dancing, and organizing. In doing so, they found themselves in confrontation with the police state in Egypt. There were recurrent clashes between the Ultras and the police, and since they were exclusively young men who were also very well-versed in the streets of Egypt, they had good fighting skills. By the time of the Arab Spring, their enmity with the police led them to be a strong part and parcel of the 25th of January Uprising. They were always present for clashes between the protesters and the police. This situation intensified when there was a huge massacre on the 1st of February, 2012, against Ultras Ahlawy in Port Said Stadium, where 74 football fans from Ultras Ahlawy were brutally killed.
By the police or the military?
Rania Ahmed — It's very messy and hard to tell what happened, but fights erupted between the Ultras of Al-Masri, the Green Eagle Ultras, and the Ultras Ahlawy members. Then, the police and the military who were there closed the doors of the stadium, and the Ahly fans were not able to leave. There were many arms in the stadium, and this is the responsibility of the military and the police. There is strong evidence about the complicity of the military and the police in this massacre, and many people, including the Ultras fans themselves, said they were being punished because of their involvement in the uprising.
What role did the 2012 Port Said massacre play in state-Ultras relations? There was also the second massacre of Ultras White Knights at the Air Defense Stadium in Nasr City. Are they related?
Rania Ahmed — They are, of course, related. As I said before, those are the two biggest Ultras groups, and they were the most heavily involved in the uprising. So, it's not a surprise that there was a massacre against those two groups. This really destabilized the Ultras as an organization and coincided with huge campaigns of arresting the Ultras, cheerleaders, and important people in the organization. This continued for years until, in 2018, the two groups had a deal with the police to release some of their members, and they would announce their dissolution.
Suppressing them into dissolution and labeling them as terrorist organizations raises the question: why are they considered so threatening?
Rania Ahmed — That's a good question. A huge part of the state's fear of the Ultras is actually how tight their organization is. Even if they announced that their objective is just to support their teams and cheer for their teams, the state is scared of any form of organization, even if its purpose is just fun and pleasure. Let alone that this is a men-exclusive organization that is able to fight and has declared their revolutionary convictions. All these reasons together make the state really afraid of the Ultras or at least intimidated by them.
Is it a coincidence that the state chose sports stadiums to securitize and take control over? Are these spaces seen as more inherently dangerous to the regime specifically after the Egyptian revolution?
Rania Ahmed — I think they are very dangerous because after 2013, the state issued an anti-protest law where any form of congregation or association can be very easily outlawed. Imagine a stadium with a capacity of 20,000 people. If the state didn't firm its grip on the stadiums, it would be as if the state is allowing protests to happen. It's a huge public space where a strong social organization can take advantage of it. The state tried to ban spectators from accessing the stadium altogether. So, we had years where most of the matches happened without any audience. The only exception was regional and international matches because the state had to comply with FIFA and CAF rules. They had to follow the rules of FIFA and other regional football associations and organizations. But you have to bear in mind that the Ultras support national teams. When you ban audience presence in the National League, you significantly undermine the organization of the Ultras because there is no reason for their existence anymore. Additionally, they militarized these spaces, so even in regional and international matches, and even if they changed the laws regarding audience presence in the stadium, the stadiums would be military zones. This makes the presence of the Ultras there a very precarious situation. If any riots erupted in the stadium since it's a military zone, those people could be subjected to military trials.
This is an Amended Question: What does a military trial mean?
Rania Ahmed — Those trials have no normal rights as in the civil courts. Sometimes the lawyers do not have access to the files, or the lawyers do not have a space to defend their defendants. So, it's not a real trial.
I'm wondering if these securitization strategies for erasing the Ultras and these sports groups include public opinion. Has the state managed to turn the public against these groups as well?
Rania Ahmed — Well, this is very hard to tell because since 2013, it has become much more difficult to know what people really think about a specific subject or group. But in the beginning, yes. By 2013, there was a strong discourse regarding the demonization of the revolutionary youth, blaming them for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power and the subsequent turmoil. Part of that discourse included the Ultras. Additionally, the state has been increasingly monopolizing sports media, promoting a narrative that demonizes the Ultras while presenting securitization as a safety strategy. By banning all audiences from attending matches, they claim to be protecting people from potential stampedes and massacres. They used multiple strategies to convince the public that this was for the best.
Although this goal of safety seems to be connected to income and class. You talked about the second securitization strategy, the digital ticket ID system. Can you briefly explain how this system works and its purpose for sanitizing the stadiums?
Rania Ahmed — Yes. For you to get the fan ID, you need to be literate about the internet and know how to upload your national ID card to a specific site. The prices of the tickets have also increased significantly. This means they are not only pushing away Ultras by checking with the Ministry of Interior the names of people involved in cases related to the Ultras, who will be denied fan IDs, but also pushing away the underclass who cannot afford these ticket prices. This restricts access to the stadium to the upper middle class and upper class. This kind of exclusion has always been in the mind of the state, even before 2013, during Mubarak's time. For example, during the African Cup of Nations that Egypt hosted in 2006, there was a celebration of middle-class people attending the stadiums instead of the working-class people who usually attended national matches. They wanted to see "clean" fans, women unveiled with their faces painted with Egyptian flags. So this digitization serves multiple purposes.
You talked about creating "respectable" and "presentable" fan bases as the ideal. Who is this performance for?
Rania Ahmed — That's a good question. The state officials always believe that the rest of the world is watching Egypt. They think all eyes are on us. Sports and sports mega-events are spectacles to display power and confirm legitimacy. This happened with Hitler in the Olympics, in Argentina, and during Nasser's era when he opened Cairo Stadium. The architect who designed Cairo Stadium also designed the Nazis' Olympic stadiums. During Mohamed Morsi's era, the stadium was used for a conference supporting Syria and declaring the state's Islamic identity. Stadiums are important sites for the state, so having a certain kind of fan and emphasizing control over the stadiums is a way to display legitimacy, power, and control over public life.
Moving to the final securitization method you mentioned; control over sports media. Does old media still have a majority hold over sports coverage and viewing in Egypt? How does social media work to circumvent that aspect of securitization?
Rania Ahmed — The dissolution of the two Ultras groups meant that their social media presence is gone. They used their pages, which had a huge following, to write statements and respond to events. But now, this is not the case. If you are following the news in Egypt, you know there are thousands of websites that are blocked. There is close surveillance of what people write and say on social media. This makes old media even more powerful. The obsession with football amplifies this effect because people are obsessed with football in Egypt. Drivers wake up and turn on sports radio channels. There are specific sports shows that everyone watches to know who will play in the next game, new deals, what's happening, the new coach, and match analysis. With that comes a lot of discourse about whatever the state wants to promote, demonizing the Ultras, or justifying specific rules about people's access to stadiums. They take advantage of this monopoly over sports media.
I assume individual players are also heavily monitored and scrutinized. Where do the players and the teams fit into how sports are talked about on TV and how fans are discussed?
Rania Ahmed — There were many players who showed acts of support to the Ultras around the massacres and other events. But as securitization increased, these acts of solidarity became less common. The Ultras' disappearance from the terraces made it more understandable for football players not to get involved in anything perceived as hyper-political. Now, we are witnessing the re-emergence of the Ultras because the state is allowing more audiences in the stadiums. There is a new generation of organized fans. Yesterday, for example, the Ultras White Knights protested Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of Zamalek shirts in the stadium.
I'm glad they're letting fans come in again for more than just the regional and international matches.
Rania Ahmed — Yes, they are increasing the number of people who can attend the national matches a little bit more. Yesterday there was a match for Zamalek, and the Ultras White Knights chanted against Coca-Cola, calling it a blood beverage.
Why are they letting fans come in for local and national matches now? Is it to recoup their investments in purchasing these stadiums?
Rania Ahmed — That was my thinking. I'm not sure. These are questions we will never have exact answers for. In the article, I interviewed a sports journalist and researcher who described the militarization of the stadiums not as an investment but more as an expenditure to rectify the military's control over the stadiums. Maybe now with the economic crisis, they are looking for ways to use the youth's surplus income. We will never know for sure. Maybe the clubs are pressuring for the return of the audience because matches without an audience are extremely dull.
There's a demoralizing effect. The performance of the teams and their success could be correlated with the presence of an audience.
Rania Ahmed — Absolutely. The Ultras always describe themselves as the 12th player. They consider their presence crucial to the players' performance and their team's success. There might be pressure from the clubs, the investors, and the sponsors. We can't say for sure if it's one reason or another, maybe all of the above.
Is that where the story is currently? I was going to ask, where are we now, and what is the current status of this story? Where do we go from here?
Rania Ahmed — We are waiting and seeing. With this relative increase in the audience in the stadium and this new generation of the Ultras, we will see what will happen. The two groups we mentioned before, Ultras Ahlawy and Ultras White Knights, have expressed pro-Palestine stances in the past few months. But we [in Egypt] are in a completely depoliticized climate, where nobody can protest. Maybe those are the only voices you can hear loudly chanting for Palestine. But I don't know where this will go. We will see what happens during this season and the next ones.
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