Algeria-Egypt: Online Feud Over Football Match

Tension is building between Egyptian and Algerian football fans ahead of a decisive match due to take place in Cairo on November 14. The encounter will determine which of both teams will qualify to next year's FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Egypt needs at least a two-goal win to force a playoff on a neutral ground while Algeria, which has failed to qualify to the World Cup since 1986, will  battle to keep its current leading position in the qualifiers group. Ahead of the Saturday showdown, rival fans have been gearing up offline, as well as in heated online exchanges, escalating into a bitter “cyber-war” of intimidation.

Algerian blogger Adel [Fr], sums up the chain of events that led to the row. He writes:

Ce n’est pas sur le carré vert que le match a commencé à se jouer mais sur la toile. En attendant l’entrée des 22 joueurs sur la pelouse du fameux Cairo Stadium, la rencontre a débuté de manière assez peu banale entre les «Facebookeurs» (membres du réseau Facebook) algériens et égyptiens. Tout a commencé par de simples discussions dans les forums avant que cela ne prenne de l’ampleur. Voulant montrer leur savoir-faire dans la retouche d’image, les Egyptiens ont été les premiers à ouvrir les hostilités en publiant des photos «anti-algérien».

Les Egyptiens voulaient expliquer à travers un tel acte que leurs joueurs sont «très forts» et qu’ils sont en mesure d’écraser l’équipe nationale algérienne. Cela donna le top à une guerre d’un genre particulier. La guerre des images et des parodies.

It seems that the match already started online, away from the football pitch. Well before the 22 players entered the famous Cairo Stadium, a bitter showdown began between Algerian and Egyptian Facebookers. It all started with friendly discussions in forums, before things got out of proportion. Wanting to show their expertise in image editing, the Egyptians were the first to open hostilities by publishing “anti-Algerian” photographs.The Egyptians wanted to show that their players were the “strongest” and that they are able to crush the Algerian national team. This gave the go-ahead to a war of a peculiar kind. A war of images and parody.

Videos, dubbing scenes taken from famous Hollywood blockbusters, flooded YouTube, placing the face-off at a Homeric level.

In the following video [Ar], posted by hakemvoip [Fr], Mel Gibson is Rabah Wallace (Braveheart), an Algerian war leader who tries to galvanize his troops ahead of the much expected confrontation:

In this other video, Egyptian ulyesis welcomes Algerian fans to what he calls “hell” in Cairo:

Blogger GEMYHOoOD [Ar] posts pictures of thousands of Egyptian fans who queued up in different parts of Cairo, hoping to get tickets for the match. He publishes pictures of the gatherings:

Egyptian Fans
Egyptian Fans

GEMYHOoOD also posts some eyewitness accounts:

انا خدت اجازة اليوم ونزلت من الصبح لنادي الصيد الساعة 8 الصبح وللاسف لقيت موت ناس وزحمة وطابور فيه حوالي 3000 واحد ودفع وشتيمة والناس كل شوية بتزيد ومش عارف اقف من الزق والعرق بجد مهزلة

I took the day off to come to the club at 8 AM [to get tickets]. Sadly I found a huge crowd and a large queue of about 3000, with people pushing and swearing. I couldn't move. I was stuck. I thought, this is a disgrace.

The official bus of the Algerian football team, which arrived in Cairo on November 12, was allegedly assaulted by local fans, as the following video, posted on YouTube by Vidéos Mouloudia Club d'Oran, seems to be showing:

The world football governing body FIFA, felt it necessary to issue a warning to the football associations of Algeria and Egypt, reminding both that “the preliminary competition for the 2010 World Cup should end as it began, in the spirit of fair play with the necessary cooperation of all the parties.”

One People, One Language One Goal

A website, Algerie Egypte Match [Ar, Fr], dedicated to the event and monitoring all kind of news related to the match, was created by Algerian fans.

Within this climate of bitter rivalry, some people created a group on the social networking website Facebook, pleading for more tempered feelings. Laama Bouchema posts a message on the group's Wall saying:

[A]s much as i am angry for what happend to the algerian team, i do not judge a whole nation for what some idiots did! it is stupid what angry fans are doing! for god's sake it wont matter who gets in the [Wold Cup].

Egyptian blogger Lasto Adri [Ar], deplores how what was supposed to be a sporting event, degenerated into a nasty confrontation. She writes:

مندهشة من التعصب وتدنى مستوى لغة الحوار بين مشجعى منتجب مصر ومنتخب الجزائر والظاهر بوضوح فى التعليقات على المواقع الإخبارية أو الرياضية… ومندهشة أكثر بتغذية هذه المأساه إعلاميا بتعليقات من بعض المذيعين (من كلا الجانبين)…
المشجعون الجزائريون أخطؤوا فى المبارة السابقة.. لكن هل الرد يكون هكذا؟.. هل الرد يكون بطلب البعض تسميم اللعيبة ولا إقلاقهم فى منامهم ولا توليع الإستاد وقت الماتش من التشجيع؟..

ونرفزتنى التعليقات على أغلب المواقع.. وإفتكرت لما الجزائر -بزعامة الرئيس الجزائري هواري بومدين- كانت أكتر دولة ساندت مصر فى حرب 1973، رغم فقرها الشديد..
حزينة ان انتهاء علاقة مابين شعبين تكون بشقاق على كورة…

I'm surprised by the level of intolerance and the mean language used by fans of the Egyptian and Algerian teams, which appears in most comments on news and sport websites… I'm also bewildered by the way some anchors and journalists (from both sides), are fueling this tragedy through their fiery comments…
Algerian fans misbehaved in the previous game .. but is the Egyptian reaction right? .. Should the answer be (as some suggested) the poisoning of Algerian players? Harassing and depriving them from sleep? Setting the stadium ablaze the day of the match?
I am upset by the comments on most sites .. I remembered when Algeria – led by President Houari Boumedienne – despite its extreme poverty, came to the support of Egypt in the 1973 war..
I'm saddened by the fact that such a relationship between two peoples might break up over a foot ball…

32 comments

  • Blocka

    Now I have watched the videos in YouTube of the Algerians who were killed in Egypt with the complicity of the Egyptian Police by the so called our Muslim brothers and my views are getting more and more hardline.
    I urge the Algerian government not to sacrify the blood of its inocent citizens for the sake of a worthless Arab union that’s not worth the paper it is written on. I am not asking for a foolish confrontation, but for a legal action against the savage Egyptian public by asking the FIFA to punish Egypt and not allow them to host sporting events and to make them play their qualification games in Nutral ground.
    If the Algerian government plays the goody and says sorry for what hepened in retaliation for our inocent dead who went to Egypt to support their team , I personnaly will refuse my Algerian nationality.
    The position I want my government to take is no to war, and no to regrets. They have got our blood on their hand, they should take the measures to reconciliate with us not the other way round. The Algerian blood is not a cheap one that can be traded for international realtions.
    If Egypt played the worst enemies of the Muslim nation they would have hosted them better than us and probably used all their security measures to protect them from their thugs. Where was all that hate when some Muslim neighbours were slaughtered in front of your eyes so called brothers Egyptians?

  • ashur

    Dear friends from Egypt
    It is difficult to understand how much violence has been put into the game starting one month before the meeting in Cairo.
    When you want to win absolutely by any mean and divert people’s attention from the nation’s real problems, thus politizing an almost ordinary fooball game, and that it happen you lose the game, well, the higher you’ve been boosting yourself, the most terrible will be the falling. That’s what you’re experiencing after the defeat on the “ground of Mars”.
    Therefore it becomes quite easy to justify the defeat by putting the blame on somebody else account i.e. Alerians.
    Our friends (we used to call them our brothers) from Egypt have always been welcomed to Algeria in conformity of pur Muslim tradition and brotherhood and international rules. We never expected Egyptian medias and fans to reach that level hyteria around a football game.
    It would have been much more profitable to both peoples to stay high in spirit and not to mix football game and politics so as to stay clean. When the Algerian team have been wounded in the bus four hundred meters between the airport and the hotel, with no protection whatsoever, what do yu expect Algerian fans would do? The World have seen the images of the wounded Algerian players.
    Today the Egyptian medias show two commercial surfaces that have been devastated by the Algerian fans, well, you genious one, find the relations between the two events or the equilibrium!
    Hatred will lead you wherever, you never entended to go and at the end, only remorses. Very easy to go down and lose one’s dignity with such passion.
    Strictly speaking, Egyptian team was quite fantastic however it did not win. That’s the way things go :one loser and one winner in a football game, so what’s the problem? Do you commit the sin in thinking the Egyptian football game should never lose? Why?
    I am personally ashamed about the attitude of the Egyptian medias in particular: they changed a football game into a war and slauhtering and buchering. By Allah tafar’un is not good. The Algerian side just reacted, mixing the sacred blood of shuhadas to a football game and so on.
    Come on, let’s be responsable and think little bit about the consequences of our words and deeds. (do not lit a fire least you burn in it).
    The sickness of Arabs is that they put a folkloric emphasis in self praing: it is to who is going to the hero, the most noble proving by this behaviour thier “awsome nothingness”. Somebody calls himself a tiger, another one a lion another a Phara’un etc, what a mess and what a pity At the the same time other people from other cultures, around are planing higher tecnological achievement for the welfare of their people. Arabs, always are striving for the leadership of nothing! The Mighty Allah will always defeat the boosting ones.
    Aller, ya gam’aa, friends, do not be bad loosers!’cause c’est la vie!
    Cheer!

  • Moody

    we live in a world where justice no longer has a voice…

    we live in a world where barbarians scream so loud, that the dignified voices of civilized people no longer matters to anyone….

    Egypt is the victim , yet the world’s offline and online media believes otherwise….

    that’s because “favors” and political crap overrules the sound of common-sense and humanity…

    However, nothing stays the same for long…
    Egypt WILL have its rights back…

    with the support of un-just media, or without it!

    the world is on a verge of change!
    a change for the better….

    Let Algerians have their laugh for now,
    cause it won’t last for long.

  • Moody

    one more note…

    i am personally ashamed too that such truth-twisters can find it in their hearts to see the truth, and turn their back to it….

    and i am personally enraged about the official political and media direction of the algerian nation….

    a nation we helped get on their feet and become civilized and independent…

    like i said,… we live in an ugly world….

    but that’s not the end of it….. not by far!

    the future will tell, the future will tell!

  • YasseR

    It’s a shame that things got out of control. I’m Egyptian, and I love the Algerians and will be supporting their team in the World Cup as the only Arab country in the tournament, no matter what, because the Algerians fell victims to their misleading media, who wrongfully claimed that some Algerians got killed by Egyptian fans, along with other fabricated stories. and I single out AL CHOUROUK newspaper, which published a picture of an Algerian covered in the Algerian flag, faking death, a story later denied by the Algerian government itself. So the next game was one of retaliation based on sheer lies that the Egyptians had killed and mistreated the Algerians in their homeland. What saved a lot of bloodshed was their victory on the pitch, yet those hooligans who went to Sudan did their best to terrorize the Egyptian elite who went to enjoy a soccer game expecting sportsmanship and fair play. Now, Algerians you have to know that the Egyptians have no grudges against you, nor against any other nation, as your newspapers have been claiming, because our history and civilization in all fields put us ahead, way ahead. You too are a great nation that we respect. Let’s admit that rivalry any where may lead to some violence even within the same country. Let’s admit that everybody anywhere wishes their country to be in the mondial. You were the luckier party, so good luck, you’ve got what you wished for, and you were better in the last game, though slightly better. Believe me the Egyptians forgive and forget with as little as a smile and will be backing you in South Africa, though some will do that secretly. Let’s now remember that we both have one common enemy that we must unite to get over, the enemy that you are accusing us of being allied to!! This enemy is on cloud nine these days because of our stupid conflict. I have a feeling that deep down neither of us is happy about what’s going on, and I suddenly realized that the new generations in both countries have never been close, but I believe that, to the whole world’s surprise, we could get more united, applying the saying that goes ‘Love is best after animosity’ or ‘ma ma7aba ela ba3d 3adawa’. So enough insults on both sides. We are Arabs, we are Muslims, we pray for one another in our prayers, so let’s put our differences aside and turn over a new leaf, and sing together 1, 2, 3, viva l’arg

    • Blocka

      At last one voice of wisdom from Yasser the Egyptian who knows how to use his lips and finger tips.
      Because you were impartial in your views, I am now overcoming my Algerian feelings and I will try to be as impartial as I can.
      I think the best course of action in conflicts like this is to call a completely nutral party to act as a judge and investigate the claims of both parties. Nutral for me, means a delagation from a country that has nothing to do with either Algeria nor Egypt.
      The 3rd party must not be Arab, nor Muslim, nor from the African continent, nor christian, nor…etc.
      The Japanese , or the chinese for example, they must not be influenced by any of the parties in the conflict, and must be world renouned for their fairness.
      If this happens, both parties in the conflict must sign an agreement to accept the outcome of the investigation.
      The party that is found to be in fault must bear the consequences.
      In any conflict both parties are biased to their cause, we are humans. No rule can beat the nutral party fair judgement. The nutral party judges solely from the facts and evidence not from the biased feelings.
      Look at the great values of our prophet Salla Allah aaleyh wa Salam, when he wanted a debate with the Jews and Christians, He said, “Come to a common word between us and you” how great is this , he completely ignored the differences and emphasised what is common. Truely there are diffences between the three religions, but also there is a lot in common.
      Why looking at the empty half only?

  • Blocka

    There is an Algerian Proverb that explains this situation
    \They beat me up then cried and went before me to the judge and complained\. It is not good to to ask the both sides to calm down.
    If someone come to you in the street and punch you in the face, is it fair to ask both sides for calm?.
    Personally, my reaction would be to punch them back and then step on their face before I accept \their\ pleads for forgiveness. I wouldn’t ask for forgiveness from someone who punches me first in the face. No matter who they are.
    I know that everyone is thinking quietly the same as me.
    Now let’s return to Al Masriya and their own trumpet blowing sessions. Before blowing your 7000 years old kind of own trumpet, ask yourselves the question, what are you now?, you seriously need to update your clocks, they are 7000 years late. About the Nobel prize winners that Al Masriya was gargling thier mouths with, First only one of them is the full product of Egypt and studied in Egyptian universities, the others were made in America kind of Egyptians, they have been nurtured, financed, and trained in America. Al Masriya don’t claim other nations glory and call it yours. We in Algeria have no need for your nobel prize winners , we have 1million and a half people everyone of them is worth 100 millions of your nobel prize winners.
    They are people who didn’t have to study in Harvard and win nobel prizes to know that they should give their life for their country and tought everyone how not to accept to live under the occupation. Would anyone of your prize winners give thier life for their country?. I personally doubt it. The Al Masriya TV presenter who called our supporters peasants, well know it for sure, that every one of them wouldn’t hesitate for a second to give thier life if Algeria is attacked. The man is not the suit they wear (MR suit), they are the heart and personality they have, and believe me the Algerians are all heart when it comes to defend their country.
    Even your claims of nobel prize, if we compare it like for like, we have scientists, Doctors and professors in as complex subjects as robotics in the M.I.T, and other renouned universities in the world. We are not claiming that they are the full product of Algeria, and it is true that none of them achieved a Nobel prize, but they are nearly there and catching up. We have been delayed for 132 years by the French occupation and our people were busy trying to get our independence rather than studying in prestigious universities. Few years after the independence, we had some world renound peolpe in a lot of filelds.
    Bye Bye 7000 year old Al Masriya, you blow your own trumpet so much, you make a Jazz orchestra jalous and now you need a throat replacement, I hope your mommy, is still working, you need it to conserve your voice for the next 7000 years. The past is history, the future is mistery, the present is misery.

  • Blocka

    They kill our people and Arabs call for calm, now I have just read that their male so called policeman have stripped naked our women supporters and there is still a call for calm to both parties.
    Well, the hell with this calm, the hell with arab union, the hell with Egyptian brotherhood, our dignity is touched deeply.
    Why is the Algerian government silent over these barbaric acts of a nation that has no respect for us?.
    Believe me dear citizens of Algeria, we have nothing to lose by parting from these wild animals.
    Wake up Algerian government, do you care about the dignity of your citizens? if so do something about it, not by starting a war, but by cutting all ties with Egypt until the criminals who took part in this scandal are brought to justice. I mean international justice.
    I have no respect and no trust in the Egyptian justice, by the way do they have one?
    Have anyone asked the question what would have hapened if it was the other way round i.e Algerians terrorising and stripping naked egyptian women in Algeria, the whole Arab world would have taken sides with Egypt and Algeria would have been condemned by everyone.
    When the whole world saw what Egyptians did to our players and with overwhelming evidence, the Arab world is asking both parties for calm.
    The hell with the Arab league, we don’t want to be part of it, as we are way more civilised for being called Arabs.
    I have double nationality (Algerian and French).
    I am using my French nationality only until the Algerian government does something about our human rights in country that has none (Egypt).
    Is that the model that our government wants us to follow, a country that claims to be the leader of the arab world , and lets its citizens and police behave in such a shameful and disgusting way.
    I rather stick to the European model that I see here in Britain, It is a lot more civilised.
    If being arab means like the Egyptians, I rather not be one.

  • krim algerie

    i think egypt should calm themselves this is football sometime you win sometimes you not

    will egyptians support algeria

    plz algerians and egyptian plz plz plz be friendly god does’nt like algeria and egypt hate each others no

    be a proud you youselfs

    thank you

    123 vive algerie

  • […] GVO covered the Algerian side of the online feud and tension over the decisive football match due to take place in Cairo on November 14. The […]

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