Egypt Vs. Algeria - What a mess!

Participating in FIFA Wold Cup 2010 was a dream that every Egyptian had. "Algeria is our gateway to South Africa" they said, and everyone really believed that we're going to FIFA World Cup 2010, but this beautiful dream turned into an ugly nightmare.

But didn't we really know or at least expect that this would happen? Aside from our joint history in football, which I won't go through, let's take it slowly and go through the events from the first match in Algeria on June 7th until today.

On the 7th of June 2009 our players had one of their worst times ever in Algeria. They couldn't sleep all night, the night before the game, because of Algerians driving their cars and blowing their horns around the Hotel in which the Egyptian National team is staying. They beat them up during the match as usual, the bus that transported the Egyptian National team from the airpot to the Hotel was destroyed, and when the match was over the bus that was taking them back to the airport had to take an off road shortcut to safely transport them to the airport without injuries. Let's not forget also that Algerian hackers that hacked into the ِEgyptian Football Federation's website and put the Star of David instead of the Federation's logo. They cursed us and cursed our religion - which is the religion that most of them follow. And at this moment it was clear for everyone that to the Algerians it wasn't just a football match. 

Let's go now to the 14th of November, Cairo - Egypt. A small group of Egyptian supporters waited for the Algerian National team's bus and they threw stones at it which is understandable as a reaction of some people who see it as revenge for our National team or something, which is also something that I'm personally against. But when the Algerian supporters started their sabotage acts and started breaking and destroying anything they can here in Cairo, it was another sign that it is not just football, it's something else, and they have other motives and reasons. But still they were protected by the Egyptian Police which would have never happened in Algeria if Egyptian supporters went around destroying stuff in Algeria. Actually, Egyptians living in Algeria have been going through hell since the Egyptian National team won by 2-0, which meant that they still had one more match to qualify either Egypt or Algeria, after they thought that there's no chance for the Egyptian team. Egypt Air has been attacked with millions of dollars worth of damage, they besieged Orascom and attacked it causing damage estimated by 5 million dollars, in addition to the Algerian IRS calling Orascom Telecom for 596.6 million dollars as taxes only after Naguib Swiris announced that the damage caused was estimated by 5 million dollars. And then when Egyptians working in Orascom Algeria felt unsafe and wanted to return home, the Algerian Government refused and forced them to stay so that it wouldn't "SEEM" that Egyptians are unsafe in Algeria. Come on, the whole world has seen what's been happening. How can they even try to deny it?! And the final match was decided to be 4 days after, on the 18th of November in Sudan.

Two days prior to the match Algerians arrived in Sudan and started buying tickets from the Sudanese for 10 times their prices, besides buying nearly all the knives in the Sudanese markets. The knife that's supposed to cost 5 pounds was sold for 30, and those that cost 10 pounds were sold for 50. But let's pause here for a second, why would anyone need to buy a knife for a football match? If it's just football as they and their Foreign Minister claimed, what were the knives for? Aside from that, why didn't the Sudanese warn us and tell us what was going on? Oh, was it because the Algerians were giving them money to carry their flags, to the bus drivers so that they'd leave the Egyptian Supporters buses in streets loaded with Algerians with weapons and maybe even to the Police forces to run and leave the Egyptian supporters "Actors & artists" without any protection? Can u imagine that the Algerian Government sent more than 10,000 bullies, x-cons and newly released criminals to wait for the supporters outside the stadium? It was an ambush organized and done by more than 30,000 people. Do you still call it a football match? well, I say this is something else, something big, something that will have extreme consequences and reactions. And the Egyptian Government must take real action, even if it gets to cutting all relations with Algeria and freezing all Egyptian investments in Algeria, which exceed 5 billion dollars. And today the Arab Contractors froze their investment plans in Algeria, as the Egyptian Ministry of Trade & Industry also froze their project with Algeria where they're supposed to found an industrial zone in Algeria. That's not it, we should take more action about it, and let's all vote against Algeria on www.ipetitions.com  hoping they'd be disqualified by the FIFA.