Officials state not kicking off on December 30 would be a disaster   Cairo – Hesham Chahine The Egyptian Football Association [EFA] is in a race against time in a last-ditch attempt to gain the approval of the Ministries of Defence and the Interior to begin holding league matches on December 30. The football governing body is intensifying its efforts in order to ensure that the date appointed in an agreement with football clubs is upheld.
An official source in the EFA has said that the organisation’s board of directors will “form a delegation of its members to hold unannounced meetings” with Minister of the Interior, Major general Ahmed Gamaleddine and Major general Ahmed Helmi MoI Undersecretary for General Security along with Minister of Defence Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his undersecretaries.
The meeting, the source said, aims at “arranging the return of the league on the appointed date.”
The same source added that the league not kicking off on December 30 would be “a disaster by all possible standards.” Such an event, the source explained, would “cancel all contracts for the 2012-2013 season, for players as well as sponsors and others.”
This, he added, would cost the EFA and the clubs “millions of pounds in losses,” in addition to “dismissing many players and causing many sports workers to be laid off.”
“A large number of clubs have sent the Football Association formal letters to inform it that they will officially declare bankruptcy if the league does not return on December 30,” the source added.
He also affirmed the EFA’s “solidarity” with the clubs “in any measures they choose to take, whether it be a sit-in or a demand for financial compensation” due to the “gravity of the disaster” which he said has affected “the Football Association, the clubs, radio, television and all sports workers.”