Egypt’s brief and stormy World Cup appearance raised an important question: What do we expect from our idols?
For decades, Egyptian politicians have tried to gain reflected glory from The Pharaohs. The former dictator Hosni Mubarak would visit the team before big games. And before Salah, the hero was Muhammad Aboutrika, an absurdly talented midfielder who was politically outspoken. When the revolution came in 2011, he supported it. When the counterrevolution wiped away the Muslim Brotherhood-supported presidency of Muhammad Morsi, replacing it with the neo-dictatorship of Abdel Fattah al Sisi, Aboutrika was suddenly on the wrong side of history. He is now living in exile in Qatar, his assets seized, placed on an Egyptian “terrorist” list.
Salah was a prodigy of Aboutrika. He even had Aboutrika’s iconic number 22 in his Twitter handle. But Salah has learned from him what can happen when you become too popular, and too political. Aboutrika was destroyed for it. Quietly, and without many people noticing, the 22 was removed from Salah’s Twitter handle before the World Cup. “When you have a nation in a boat, buffeted by waves, it’s a very difficult position for Salah to be in,” Amr Khalifa said.
Salah will now find respite when he returns to Liverpool. Yet little will change if he returns to the Egypt national team; caught between the love of 100 million people, and the love of the powerful seeking to profit from his glory.
James Montague is a British writer and journalist. The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.