WATANI International
12 September 2010
This year marks 50 years since the Cairo Stadium came into being
On the evening of 24 July 1960, President Gamal Abdel-Nasser inaugurated the Cairo International Stadium under a cloud of coloured balloons and with the thunder of cannons shaking the ground. As the stadium rocked to applause, a chorus of 7,000 sportsmen and tens of thousands of spectators chanted the words of the song Allahu Akbar(God is the Greatest) .
Similar to Berlin’s
The idea of the stadium can be traced to 1936 in the immediate aftermath of the Berlin Olympics. Meanwhile, the Civil Committee for Gymnastics invited the German architect Werner March—who had designed the Olympic Stadium in Berlin—to investigate a way to establish an Olympic stadium in Cairo. After March had designed the project, the committee appealed to the government to approve it, given that it was necessary should Egypt ever host the Olympic Games. Yet the persistent effort by the committee was all to no avail. When the Ministry of Social Affairs was founded in 1944, the committee raised the issue once more and, as the government was planning to found the Town of Endowments close to Cairo, the ministry reserved a 211,567-square-metre plot for the stadium. Still the Ministry of Construction vetoed the scheme on the grounds that the area was too precious in terms of land value to be put to such use. It recommended that a cheaper piece of land be chosen instead. The sports department at the Ministry of Social Affairs proposed that the budget of 1946/1947 would allocate EGP200,000 to kick off the scheme. But the budget appeared without such allocation.
New town
Four years after the 1952 Revolution, Abdel-Latif al-Boghdadi, then the Minister of Municipal Affairs, proposed a number of public projects including a new town of modern design, that would include a stadium. He suggested that the new town should be established in the area between Abassiya and Heliopolis. It was decided that 350 feddans of the scheme’s 1000-feddan-area be allocated for the stadium against 160 for the town centre market and the remaining 490 for housing units.
The idea began to materialise when a committee headed by Boghdadi and including officials from the ministries of defence, trade, industry, among others, was formed to carry out the giant plan. The committee sought the help of Herr March, who made the design in cooperation with Colonel Salah Ghalib. Colonel Ghalib introduced some significant modifications, including the use of the dust arising from the drilling to build the earthen embankment over which the grandstands were to be installed.
Singing away
Some EGP5.5 million were allocated for the scheme, which was expected to take five years to complete. Surprisingly enough, the project’s actual cost turned out to be no more than EGP3 million. As the area contained military camps and a military prison, compensation amounting to EGP15,000 was paid to the army. The first step was the establishment of a network of roads, since the area was originally dominated by plateaus and hills that were used to train conscripts in shooting. However exhausting the process of construction was, workers spared no effort to do it in the proper way. While their pickaxes were smashing the soil, the workmen sang nationalist songs. To make it easier to reach the seats, the 14 engineers who were executing the scheme designed the court in a unique way. It took the shape of a bowl with the lower part located below ground level, while the upper part was made out of the dust, as originally planned. According to the design, the stadium had a capacity of 80,000 seats and 20,000 standing spectators. The stadium has two floors: the lower extends more than 15 metres below ground level while the upper starts 1.2 metres beneath the ground level and extends to 19.65 metres above that level on the western side and 11.35 metres on the eastern side. There are four main entrances and 14 sub entrances.
Football icon
At first it was called the Revolution Stadium, but was afterwards renamed the Nasser Stadium. It is now called Cairo Stadium. The first manager was Ahmed al-Demerdash, who accomplished a number of achievements including basketball courts and the specification of courts for female students at the Faculty of Physical Education.
The stadium has hosted various nationalist occasions including the anniversaries of the 23 July Revolution and the 1973 October War.
The stadium’s sporting activities at the outset were confined to football, but later expanded to include many other sports. The stadium now has seven separate areas comprising an indoor gymnastics complex, swimming and squash complexes, riding area, the open air arena, tennis courts, cycle track and subordinate courts.
But the Cairo Stadium is famous as an icon of Egyptian football and all the most important Egyptian matches, including those between the two top teams Zamalek and Ahli are held there. It hosted the 2006 African Nations Cup in which Egypt emerged victorious.