Six days have passed since Egypt and Senegal faced off in Dakar in the second leg of the African qualifiers for the World Cup, and the Egyptian Football Association is still calling for the match to be repeated.Six days have passed since Egypt and Senegal faced off in Dakar in the second leg of the African qualifiers for the World Cup, and the Egyptian Football Association is still calling for the match to be repeated.
The World Cup draw, which signed Senegal alongside Qatar, the Netherlands and Ecuador, did not prevent the Egyptian Football Association from continuing to seek a rematch to eliminate Senegal.
The beginning of the crisis:
Egypt lost 1-0 to Senegal, so the two teams tied 1-1 in the first leg and the return leg, before the Teranga Lions decided to qualify by penalty kicks in a meeting marred by tension and anxiety before it started.
The Egyptian Football Association presented a complete file of the abuses of the Senegalese public, and the bad treatment of the guests, as described by Hazem Imam, a member of the Federation’s board of directors, who said: “They treated us in a very bad way, and the members of the official Egyptian mission had no place in the stadium during the match.”
Stones were thrown at the buses of the Egyptian fans, objects were thrown inside the stadium during the match, in addition to the unprecedented intense use of laser beams to disrupt the vision of the Egyptian national team players during the penalty shootout, as 3 players were wasted and only one player scored.
In its complaint with FIFA, the Egyptian Federation demanded that the match be replayed or that the Egyptian team be considered a winner and qualified for the World Cup, based on the violations committed against the Pharaohs in Dakar.
Gamal Allam, head of the Egyptian Federation, said in televised statements: "We went to the FIFA Congress in Qatar to support our complaint against Senegal, and to press hard for it to be referred to the Disciplinary Committee."
On the possibility of rejecting the complaint, Allam said: "We eagerly await the response, whether it is in our favor or against us, because in the second case we will continue to escalate in the various levels of litigation, and we will move to the International Court (CAS)."
Similar incident:
In the 1994 World Cup qualifiers, Egypt defeated Zimbabwe, but one of the fans threw a solid object inside the stadium to injure the coach of the visiting team, who bandaged his head and the match was completed naturally and Egypt won and the fans celebrated, but a decision came after that to repeat the match to end in a draw and Egypt lose the opportunity to qualify for the second time in a row for the World Cup.
Allam continued, "We are now facing an incident similar to what happened in the 1994 qualifiers with Zimbabwe, because things were thrown at the players during the match from the stands, in addition to laser jamming during the penalty shootout."
Allam pointed out that the Egyptian team bus was pelted with stones, in addition to throwing full water bottles at goalkeeper Mohamed El-Shennawy during the warm-up and during the match, with the continuous insults on the banned loudspeakers against Mohamed Salah and the players.
The Football Association issued an official statement on the third of April, announcing that Portuguese coach Carlos Queiroz, coach of the Pharaohs, had been granted a short leave before deciding on his fate, until the response from “FIFA” to the complaint to replay the match against Senegal.
Will the match be repeated?
Amer Hussein, a member of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Football Association, had a contrary opinion to the president of the federation, as he said in televised statements: “We will not reproach ourselves by repeating the match, there are no indications of that despite our submission of a file with all the violations.”
Hussein added: "FIFA now has a file on everything that happened from our arrival at the airport until our departure from Senegal, but we do not want to deceive the public. There are no indications of approval of our request to repeat the match."
But the Egyptian Federation still hopes to accept his request, according to the statements of its president, and the official statement issued to grant Queiroz a rest until the fate of the match is determined.
Egypt is awaiting a decision to replay the match in the next international break in June, to face Senegal on a neutral ground, and to repeat its attempt to qualify for the World Cup at the end of this month.
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