The disappearance of cups, shields, medals, and antique swords from the Egyptian Football Association’s warehouses created a storm in the Egyptian sports circles and amid the Egyptian public, as the news was covered heavily by the Egyptian media and followed by thousands of fans on social networking sites on Friday.
After the major uproar resulting by the news of the disappearance of some cups, most notably the 2010 Africa Nations Cup, which Egypt retained after having won the cup twice before (in 2006, 2008), the Egyptian Football Association issued a press statement in which it said: "As the Egyptian FA is currently developing the main headquarters, including changing the entrance to a small museum of Egyptian football, the management was shocked by the disappearance of some old trophies from the storeroom."
"The EFA is now investigating the trophies' disappearance to determine if those old trophies were saved after the building was burned ... or if they were lost when the building was exposed during this incident," the statement added.
For his part, Walid Al-Attar, the executive director of the Egyptian Football Association told Asharq Al-Awsat: “An urgent investigation has been opened with a number of the Federation’s employees as part of the case of the disappearance of many cups, shields and medals obtained by the national team over the past decades.”
“The investigation does not aim to bring charges against anyone, but the goal behind it is to identify the possessions and cups that were stolen during the storming and outbreak of fire at the Federation headquarters in March 2013.”
