The African Cup of Shadows!

Image is courtesy of yallakora.com




In any respectful company in the world(Egypt ofcourse is not included!) when there's a major sports event or other type of big events ,you will find that almost every thing living or residing on the ground of the hosting company reflects the essence of this event ,but this unfortunately happens only out there ,not here.

The African Cup of Nations will start next Friday. That's less than forty eight hours remaining ,if you wander around the Egyptian cities that host the games(Greater Cairo ,Alexandria ,Port Said and Ismailya) you will have no feeling about that ,a championship like that which should attract supporters from all over Africa and even Business Men from Europe and Asia who seeks the best players to negotiate with them for future Appointments in European Football Teams ,achampionship that will be watched by hundreds of Millions all around the globe ,what the hell is our smart government thinks? ,Where's the Championship?

I decided to take a roaming session around the city to see the "Festival" appearances that may be already there ,here's a summary of what I found:

-Street Ads for Pepsi that is displayed on different sizes and different locations ,and some of them features players who won't be among the selected players in the Egyptian National Team!

-Some Flags that is hanged on thin iron pillars around the city and always on the sidewalks ,it's hardly seen and can be easily overlooked.

-Another street Ads but this time it belongs to CocaCola Company(Another sponsor for the National Team!) ,with a tag saying (One Nation...One Team!).

-Street ads displaying the Cup's logo (CrocoNile) with it's idiot and retarded design which looks very near to Lizard than a Crocodile! ,also te Ads itself has a very poor quality and foggy colors(Note that those are paid for by the Official Organizational committee!).

-The newest thing which appeared suddenly today is that they started putting African countries flags over the Street Lamps ,I thought that the first flag I saw belongs to a newly opened consulate or something ,but the flag I saw was hanged on a street lamp beside a waste land!!


And that's it ,yes that's it ,nothing more. I thought first that this may apply only to Alexandria ,But according to friends who lives in Cairo and websites like yallakora.com ,those are 90% of the "Signs" available there! ,so where's the festivals atmospheres? ,where's the African decorations? ,the Huge Ads everywhere(I am talking about the Government sponsored Ads)? ,where's the celebrations? ,where's the Championship itself?

The government still dealing with a major event in the most bureaucratic attitude in the world ,the preparation were done with the mentality of the Governments Employees and lacks all the creativity and fresh ideas that it badly needs ,and they already knew that we will be hosting this Championship in early 2001 ,so what they were doing during the past five years ,if you don't know what they were busy with wait till you read the last paragraph.

A few days ago I was sitting in my Dentist's Clinic waiting for my inspection's turn ,the TV was displaying a retarded Program on the retarded Egyptian Second Channel ,the guests were apparently talking about the AFC and their expectations about it ,one of the speakers was a major member in the organizational committee ,he was simply saying that more than ten thousand Libyan supporters will be in Cairo during the matches ,and this morning I came upon a silly article in the Ahram Newspaper stating that more than three thousand Tunisian supporters will be backing their National Team which will be playing it's matches here in Alexandria ,and all the 3000 people already arrived here!. Well if you ask anyone here if he saw a large groups of Tunisian people anywhere ,ofcourse no one saw any one ,and the same in Cairo where you csn see our Libyan brothers visiting the famous doctors clinics in the Downtown Cairo!

Another notice from the list of endless notices is the booking system ,the tickets itself is offered for sale in a limited places and most of the places are the post offices locations around the hosting cities ,this is another example of the narrow mentality of the government. When you are having a sports event like that you seek the attendance of young people mostly ,so why you don't do the tickets marketing in the places they usually hang in? ,malls ,cafe's restaurants ,Universities..Etc ,and have it marketed in an attractive way instead of the traditional posters that were stuck on the post offices doors. The other notice about tickets is the online ordering facility, I was so pleased when I saw on the official website that you can book your tickets online ,this is mainly aimed at the foreigners supporters and thought that it will give every one who is coming over here the sheer opportunity of having their tickets reserverd along with all the necessary information they need. The greatest achievement is that when you click on the link to go to the purchasing page you will see the following message:

Buying tickets online is no longer available. You can now buy your tickets at: blahblahblahblah!



I guess our lovely government were so busy during the past months in forging both of the Presidential & parliament elections results ,and after that it was having a romantic conversation with the Sudanese Refugees in the heart of Cairo ,such gentlness and tenderness were very heavy load on the Sudanese people's hearts and more than one hundred of them couldn't take it anymore ,also we can't forget their sincere efforts in sexually assaulting the female protesters in the middle of the street last May and also setting up Ayman Nour and locking him up in the prison ,we are really ignorant citizens ,we never thank God for our lovely government ,and we should ignore all the above notices cause they were so busy ,and let's enjoy The African Cup of Shadows!