On January 15th 2007 Eng. Motaz Raslan, Chairman of the Canada Egypt Business Council (CEBC), held his organization’s monthly dinner at the Marriott hotel. The event hosted Eng. Hassan Sakr, president of the National Sports Council and Mr. Samir Zahir, Chairman of the Egyptian Football Association underlining the future and expectations of Egyptian sports. Following the speech of our esteemed guest was a panel discussion moderated by Mr. Fathy Sanad, Editor in Chief, Akhbar El Reyada, Akhbar El Yom.
Eng. Sakr and Mr. Zahir addressed attendees with a thorough and interesting speech that covered the sports development in Egypt. They both exchanged ideas about education through sports and the social roles of sports in the present society. Sakr began by assuring the attendees on the governments’ effort to develop the sports in Egypt, however he underlined the importance of the strong financial support that can be offered by Businessmen in Egypt to athletes.

Sports in Egypt have been relying heavily on government support for the past decade, while internationally sports are being transformed into a huge industry. Relaying on sponsors’ support, it had tremendously developed in other parts of the world. Such an industry needs money and financial support.
Such an industry needs money, it needs financial support to grow and develop. Having a healthy sponsorship environment in Egypt would definitely benefit the Egyptian sports and develop it into having more and more athletes that are of international standards.
Zahir noted that sponsors must follow up with legal matters and abide by the rules not focusing only on their personal interests. Eng. Raslan pointed out the importance of the government to push participation of sponsorships by decreasing land prices that fits the sponsor’s budget to construct professional sport clubs. Raslan assured that this itself will put a new thought in sports investments and help depict talented athletes in different sport fields leading the country to victory.

In the end Fathy Sanad stressed the importance of facilitating the procedures and laws for businessmen to sponsor athletes without the hassle of being accused of only using it as a marketing tool.