The viral videos featuring the Egyptian football team performing Islamic prayers at the FIFA World Cup revive accusations of Muslim football apartheid against Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
The organization Coptic Solidarity has complained that the “widespread, comprehensive and systematic religious, governmental and societal discrimination” against Copts extends to sports and soccer, based “not on ability, discipline, or merit, but solely because of their Christian faith.”
Mina Thabet, an expert on religious minorities in Egypt and a former prisoner of conscience, said the roots of discrimination are structural in “the scouting, recruitment, and trial processes in local clubs.”
The roots of discrimination are structural in “the scouting, recruitment, and trial processes in local clubs.”
Coptic Solidarity has asked FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to launch independent investigations into religious discrimination in Egyptian sports, remove religion-based barriers in club registration processes, and enforce anti-discrimination standards as a condition for participation in international competitions, Lindsay Rodriguez, the director of development and advocacy for Coptic Solidarity, said.
The advocacy group sent its 2018 report, Discrimination Against Copts in Egyptian Sport Clubs, to FIFA, noting that there have been no more than six Coptic footballers in top soccer clubs over the past half-century. It cited the examples of former Coptic footballer Ashraf Youssef, whose teammates refused to eat with him, and Tony Atef, a Coptic child, rejected by a well-known sports club because he had a cross tattooed on his wrist.
One video showed the Egyptian team prostrating in a “group Islamic prayer” during the match against Argentina. Players also kneeled in the sujood position of Islamic prayer after Egypt went up 2–0.
The Egypt Football Association posted a second video, titled “The Secret to Victory,” showing the team praying before a match. Tim Dieppe, head of public policy at Christian Concern, and Egyptian-American scholar Raymond Ibrahim, explained that the prayers were anti-Jewish and anti-Christian. “Cursing Christians and Jews is a standard part of Islamic prayers, recited millions if not billions of times every day by Muslims around the world,” Ibrahim wrote. “Muslim commentators have virtually unanimously understood ‘those who earned your anger’ to be the Jews, and those who ‘went astray’ to be Christians,” Dieppe confirmed.
Meanwhile, in a series of antisemitic libels, Egyptian political analyst Mohammad Nour claimed that Egypt’s World Cup defeat to Argentina was because “FIFA and Israel prevented Egypt from winning.” The Egyptians played “like men,” but “Israel … I mean FIFA and the referee had something different to say,” he said. “A limit was set for Egypt and it was not allowed to cross it.”
“They did not allow the flag of Palestine,” Nour falsely asserted in a video that has gone viral. “The Argentine team is an Israeli team par excellence,” and Argentinian president Javier Milei is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “best friends [sic] among presidents.” Nour also claimed that the Argentinian captain, Lionel Messi, visited Israel several times, put on a kippah, and prayed at the Western Wall.
Since 1946, the United States has provided Egypt with over $90 billion in bilateral foreign aid, with military and economic assistance increasing significantly after 1979.
FIFA declined to sanction Egyptian Head Coach Hossam Hassan after he displayed a Palestinian flag to celebrate Egypt’s victory over Australia, contradicting Article 13 of its disciplinary code, which states that “using a sports event for demonstrations of a non-sporting nature” constitutes “offensive behavior.”
“My heart and soul are with them. May Allah grant them victory. May Allah have mercy on their martyrs,” Hassan said afterward, regarding the Palestinians. FIFA said that flags of all FIFA member associations are permitted at FIFA competitions.
In 2016, Egyptian police arrested Hassan for chasing and punching a police photographer and smashing his camera after an Egyptian Premier League match. The Egyptian Football Association suspended him from taking part in his club’s next three matches and fined him 10,000 Egyptian pounds.
Since 1946, the United States has provided Egypt with over $90 billion in bilateral foreign aid, with military and economic assistance increasing significantly after 1979, a U.S. congressional report noted, highlighting how Copts face “discrimination and persecution from the government, as well as from other citizens and terrorist groups.”
Coptic Solidarity is calling for the international community to hold Egypt to account. “Historically, international pressure has played an important role in ending discrimination in sport globally, including racial segregation in South Africa,” Rodriguez emphasized. “Egypt should not be allowed to benefit from the prestige of international competition while systematically excluding Christian athletes from equal participation.”
