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| Africa North |
| Dem Juices Are Stealing Our Boys! |
| 2012-03-28 |
| 'Israel poaching Egyptian soccer players' Egyptian media, politicians accuse Israel of luring Egyptian athletes to play on its teams at home and worldwide Tensions over Israel's peace treaty with Egypt have been sidelined in recent weeks by an issue no less important -- soccer. According to Egyptian media reports, the local parliament has accused the Jewish state of poaching players of Egyptian heritage for the Israeli premier league. Â Egyptian television first touched on the issue, mentioning Mahmoud Abbas of the Hapoel Tel Aviv team, George Imses of Bnei Yehuda and several members of Bnei Sakhnin as examples of athletes of Egyptian origin who have opted to play for Israel. According to the report, there are also 150 Arab players who are part of various Israeli soccer teams. The head of Egypt's Defense and National Security Committee, Ahmed Ismail, has requested People's Assembly to "carefully study the possibility that Israel might be pulling or even luring Egyptian athletes to play for (its teams) at international capacity as well." Mohamed Hafez, who heads the Assembly's Youth and Sports Committee, demanded in response the athletes to return to Egypt. He said that he is meeting with bigwigs in the sports industry in an effort to prevent such "unacceptable" incidents from repeating. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #1 At least they didn't accuse Israel of luring Egyptian athletes to, well, Passover is coming in less than two weeks, and Israelis will be baking lots of matzah. Oh, and Egypt cancelled its Premier League season, after last month's deadly riot, so what are the athletes going to do? |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2012-03-28 01:01 |