Btwo weeks ago the hall was still called “6. October”. October 6th is an Egyptian public holiday, it commemorates the start of the fourth Arab-Israeli war in 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War. The entire satellite city in the Giza administrative district a good 30 kilometers west of Cairo is called “October 6th City”. Here the German handball players will play their preliminary round matches at the World Cup, against Uruguay (Friday), Cape Verde (Sunday) and Hungary (Tuesday).
The hall, which was newly built for the World Cup and which could have seated around 5000 spectators, now bears the name of the President – not the Egyptian President, however, but that of Dr. Hassan Moustafa, President of the International Handball Federation (IHF). This is an indication of the extent to which this World Cup, which begins this Wednesday with Egypt’s game against Chile (6:00 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Handball World Cup), is its president: the Egyptian Moustafa, who has led the IHF since 2000 who brought his association and handball forward economically and in the media during this time, but who is also one of the most controversial sports leaders because he was said to have some ugly things beyond his authoritarian leadership style: match manipulation, for example, but also enrichment and infidelity, with investigations were discontinued in Switzerland due to a lack of evidence.
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