Discrimination of Copts in Egyptian sport damages human rights, religious liberty, and the country’s results in international sport events as well.
by Walid Tamtam
Copts are the indigenous Christian community in Egypt. They are mostly Coptic Orthodox, but also include Coptic Protestant and Catholic minorities. Since the Islamic invasion of Egypt in 639 AD, Egypt has been ruled under various forms of Arab and Islamic governance, which has led to millennia of suffering for non-Muslim communities, especially Christians, who have decreased in proportion due to displacement, killing, and forced conversions.
Currently, the Copts find themselves facing yet another episode of discrimination, within the national sports scene in Egypt. In the recent Paris Olympic Games this summer, only one Coptic athlete joined the 157-member delegation, (Nadine Barsoum in artistic swimming). In the previous Olympics in Tokyo, only one Coptic Athlete (Youssef Helmy Makkar in shooting) was part of a delegation of 141 athletes. Coptic rights advocacy organization Coptic Solidarity has called on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to investigate Egypt’s discrimination against Coptic athletes and to advise the government to change course to correct the injustice.
Soccer continues to be the most popular sport in Egypt, with the national team being the record champion of the African Cup of Nations and hosting a strong domestic league; the Egyptian Premier League, where the two African powerhouse clubs Zamalek and Al Ahly dominate both the country and the continent. The Egyptian national soccer team has only had one notable Coptic star, Hany Ramzy, who has been retired since 2006, and now serves as a scout for Al Ahly, the club where he started his senior career, but has failed to carve a path for young Coptic athletes. Another Coptic player who played in the Egyptian Premier League, Mohsen Abdel Massih (Ismaily SC 1978–1988) was rejected by the national team “for not being able to read the Quran.”
The current Coptic Pope of Alexandria, Tawadros II, who usually makes efforts to avoid controversy in his difficult relationship between church and state in Egypt once said, “Do not ask the Copts but ask the stadiums and clubs” in response to the question why a lack of Coptic soccer players is there. He continued his remarks by saying; “Is it reasonable for Egyptian soccer not to have a Copt, not a single Copt, with a healthy leg, playing ball in the street, and becoming a player?”
Coptic Christians like Mina Bindari who shares a great passion for the game of soccer, started a project in 2019 known as “Je Suis,” a grassroots soccer academy for Coptic Christians, a first of its kind in Egypt. In Mina’s playing career, he was told by his coach that he should “change his name” as the name Mina is a common name among Coptic Christians, allowing bigoted individuals to easily identify his Christian identity.
Christians of Egypt have faced significant persecution at the hands of Muslims for several centuries, however, they have remained steadfast in their faith and identities. The famous Coptic tattoo tradition serves as an example of how Copts refuse to distance themselves from their Christian faith. As a result, certain Muslim athletic professionals and coaches fear the repercussions of seeing Christians compete at the highest level, praising Christ after scoring a goal, signaling the cross, or simply being lauded as a hero without being a Muslim.
Former soccer player Ahmed Hossam Hussein Abdelhamid, known as Mido, who is a Muslim, said in an interview on the DMC channel, “The discrimination against Christian players in Egypt comes from coaches in Egypt who have sick minds, with a lot of hatred and racism against Christians in their hearts.”
In the 1970s Egyptian society continued to grow in Islamization through media, institutions, education, and pop culture, President Anwar Sadat sought to overtake his predecessor’s Nasserist political movement of Pan-Arab socialism, by allowing the notorious Muslim Brotherhood to operate on college campuses, media, and beyond. This caused Copts to face further marginalization than in previous decades,
Another common form of discrimination plaguing Egyptian sports is misogyny, leading Muslim girls to be forbidden from taking part in sports where their skin is showing, and where they are paired with male counterparts and coaches. This provides another barrier for those who can get onto the field and out of the house in the first place. Relatively speaking, Coptic women do not face those same barriers, however, others exist such as financial, given the lack of infrastructure development within the general Egyptian women’s sporting scene.
Recent struggles of the Egyptian national soccer team indicate that the national team should expand its talent pool and domestic grassroots programs to include a safe and fair environment for Coptic athletes. The lack of any trophy by the women’s soccer team was supplemented by the recent national embarrassment of the men’s team losing 6-0 in the Olympics bronze medal game to North African rival Morocco. Usually with a lack of titles, fans become angry toward club staff, coaches, and the board of directors. Perhaps public turmoil linked to a lack of soccer success could be leveraged to open the minds of fans, players, spectators, and coaches alike, to respect those of different faiths, focusing on their athletic abilities.
If the Egyptian government seeks to unite its growing diaspora, disgruntled fans, women, and Christians under a common banner of national pride, shared values of equality and respect, along with a passion for patriotic success in the sporting field, Copts must be allowed to compete fairly across all divisions of sports, starting with the nation’s most popular sport, soccer. Coptic women may take the lead in the feminist drive behind women’s sporting growth, Coptic athletes born in the United States and Europe, who have competed at collegiate levels may find opportunities to reconnect with their North African heritage through sporting opportunities, Egypt’s international image may see improvement on the important issue of religious tolerance, something the country has yet to see in this century.
