Zamalek FC president starts one month prison term

The president of Zamalek football club started a month in prison on Saturday for “insulting” the president of rival Cairo club Al-Ahly, according to a judicial source.

Al-Ahly and Zamalek, the country’s two biggest clubs and among the continent’s most successful, are historic rivals whose fans regularly clash after matches.

AFP learned from a judicial source that the 70-year-old Zamalek boss Mortada Mansour was imprisoned on Saturday.

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He was initially sentenced to one year in prison for insulting Mahmoud al-Khatib president of Al-Ahly and a former star player and his family, in a video posted on social networks and on Zamalek’s club channel.

But in August 2022 that sentence was reduced on appeal to one month and a fine of 10,000 Egyptian pounds (500 euros).

Mansour posted on Facebook before starting the prison term that “lions aren’t afraid of death or jail”.

A former magistrate and member of parliament, Mansour is regularly in the news. He has had a long-running battle with Al-Ahly and has physically attacked his counterparts.

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His parliamentary immunity had for a while enabled him to avoid legal proceedings after complaints of insults and defamation.

The verdicts were issued on Saturday after the court rejected two appeals filed by Mansour against the two sentences.

In August 2022, a Cairo Economic Misdemeanors Court of Appeal commuted a prison term issued against Zamalek’s president from one-year imprisonment to one month for defaming Al-Khatib and tarnishing his family’s reputation via social media.

In July 2022, a court of appeals accepted an appeal submitted by Mansour against a one-year imprisonment sentence, suspending the term, fining him EGP 10,000 and requiring him to pay an initial compensation of EGP 10,000.

Mansour has filed a conflict of jurisdiction lawsuit, in which he said the two courts issued two verdicts in the same case.

However, his complaint was rejects by the Court of Cassation during today’s hearing.

Today’s verdicts against Mansour are final and cannot be appealed.

This puts an end to the months-long legal dispute between the presidents of the two Cairo giants.

Zamalek club’s president, who attended today’s session, was ordered taken to prison to serve the one-month prison sentence.

Mortada Mansour, 70, who is no stranger to controversy owing to his remarks, is an infamous Egyptian lawyer and a former parliament member.

In 2007, he was sentenced to three years in jail by a criminal court in Cairo for “insulting” court officials and levelling accusations of corruption against them.

Zamalek has not yet announced whether it will replace its president.