(Photo courtesy of Egyptian Federation of American Football facebook page)
By Nouran Maamoun
In a country that knows almost no sport but football, young Egyptian men are getting more and more interested in Gridiron football, or as it is more commonly known, American football.
Since 2007, around 40 young players took the first steps towards American football in Egypt, when they started to train in the Wadi Degla Academy. They have worked hard and faced many obstacles to spread the game and the culture associated with it among youth, especially in Egyptian universities. After the 25 January Revolution, the academy stopped and after that only two teams were on the scene, the Eagles team of the German University in Cairo (GUC), and the Cairo Sharks.
In 2013, further steps were taken to take American football in Egypt to a more professional level; the Egyptian League of American Football (EALF) was founded and started to expand with more teams.
In July 2014, Egypt was granted membership in the International Federation of American Football (IFAF). Around the same time, Morocco was also granted membership in IFAF, and so, as the only two countries in Africa with IFAF membership, the Moroccan national team met the Egyptian national team for the first time in Cairo. Morocco won the game and became the first African country to make the 2015 American Football world cup in Stockholm.
After the match with Morocco, the Egyptian Federation of American Football sprang to life. Today EFAF has seven teams, four of which are university teams: the BUE Hawks, AUC Titans, MSA Tigers, and GUC Eagles, while three are independent teams; the Cairo Bears, Hell Hounds, and Wolves.
Amr Hebbo, EFAF co-founder and chief executive, said that one of the major obstacles facing American Football in Egypt is lack of funding. While university teams have the advantage of training on campus, independent teams spend a lot of their own money in renting playgrounds.
This Friday, the final game in the American football league will be held in Kattameya Sporting Club between the Eagles and the Cairo Hell Hounds, and the following league will start in September 2015.
