Why Was Egyptian Football Coach Sacked On National Television?
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Roshan Amiri
- . June 17, 2022
- . Update: June 18, 2022 1:32 am
Egypt– As for many nations, where football is a religion, Egypt is no different. In order to keep their winning streak shining bright, the Egypt’s National Football team nicknamed the Pharaohs has replaced their coach, yet again.
It was a humiliation of sorts when the coach was sacked on national television; without having taken into confidence. It seemed the association might have been doing it to justify the constant losing streak of the team.
Hazem Imam, a member of the association’s board of directors, informed the media that plans are already underway to appoint a foreign coach this summer. The coach that was recently sacked had been freshly replaced just a few months back. Ehab Galal, who has now been shown the door had taken over from Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz in April after Egypt failed to qualify in March for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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The move comes as the team has not been able to show good performance in the qualifiers for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. The streak of bad luck continued as Egypt kicked off their qualifying campaign for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations with an unconvincing 1-0 win over Guinea on June 5, but followed up with a 2-0 loss to Ethiopia four days later. Further, a 4-1 defeat to South Korea in friendly on Tuesday prompted the association to dismiss Galal.
The Egyptian Football Association’s Board of Directors now feel they need help from an expert from the outside. This is one reason that Imam could say to the media that the association is keen to seek foreign technical directors, one for the Olympic team, and the other to oversee the federation too.
It was an embarrassing moment for the coach who was effectively sacked on live national television. Gamal Allam, head of the Egyptian Football Association, called in to a popular TV talk show this week to say that two members of the EFA board were already looking at possible replacements for Galal.
However, Allam’s response to why they chose Galal in the first placed shocked many football fans in Egypt. He said, “I asked the man in charge of money at the federation whether we had dollars in the safe to pay for another foreign coach. He told me we didn’t,” said Allam. “We chose an Egyptian coach because of the country’s economic situation and the rising value of the dollar.”
