South African paper Sunday World has published an official apology for falsely accusing several Egyptian players of hiring prostitutes during the FIFA Confederations Cup.
The notorious tabloid reported right after Egypt s historic 1-0 win over Italy that five Egyptian players spent the night with hookers at the hotel.
Some of the Egyptians rooms were burgled at the time, and Sunday World suggested that prostitutes stole the players personal possessions before leaving.
The publication admitted making a mistake, saying their well-placed sources couldn t substantiate their claims.
Our June 21 story about five Egyptian players inviting prostitutes to their hotel room has come back to bite us in the bum, Sunday World s statement read.
Our well placed sources, who swore to provide evidence supporting their allegations, have since failed to stand by the information they gave us.
Our sources include highly placed soccer officials, a senior police officer, hotel staff and a politician.
Since publication of the story, we have been flooded with e-mails from Egyptian fans disputing the story and demanding an apology.
We took this long to act because, until now, we felt certain we had first-hand witnesses. It is not clear to us if they are scared to speak out, or if they simply lied to us.
One even told us of video footage in the possession of a cabinet minister, which could not be released, but which he had seen.
But then, Sunday World is big enough to say we have boobed, when we have, and this time we say so.
We therefore apologize to the Egyptian team and the Egyptian people for the embarrassment the story might have caused them.
Beforehand, Egypt s contingent head Mahmoud Taher threatened to sue Sunday World for libel.
Shortly after, head of Confederations Cup organizing committee Danny Jordaan made an apology on behalf of the South African media.
The South African police also confirmed there were no women accompanying Egypt players to their hotel rooms on Thursday June 18th as was baselessly alleged.
