ALEXANDRIA, Egypt: Sock ball was long considered a poor man’s game for Egyptian football lovers, but more recently it’s become a show of celebration during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan that takes over the streets.
Originally played with some old socks or scraps crammed inside of each other to form a ball, sock ball is likely to have been the first football played by both Egypt’s massive soccer stars and the fans who root for them.
“The sock ball in Alexandria is so special, it has its own enjoyment, and honestly, not just anyone can play sock ball,” said Ahmed Youssef, a sock player in the coastal city of Alexandria.
A game of skill and strategy, as loyal fan Ibrahim Abu Al Wafa described it, it requires a great deal of talent from players who learn to control a small ball in tight spaces on narrow streets to score on their rivals.
“It (sock ball) has its enjoyment and a wide popularity across Alexandria,” he said of the game he has been in love with since the 1960s.
No expensive ball needed, no need for a club to play in. Everyone in the neighborhood could join in for a game of football in the street.
“These tournaments have always been popular in Alexandria,” said Mohamed Tarik Amin, 33, a driver who coordinates one of the sock ball tournaments in the city.
Over the years, the game has developed. Still called sock ball, players now kick around balls layered with duct tape and thread fashioned into the shape of a small basketball, Amin explained.
Essam Bakkar, 38, works in a clothes factory and has made balls from leather and old pieces of cloth since he was a teenager. Now he uses mass-produced balls wrapped in duct tape and sewing thread for a better grip on asphalted streets.
Nets are set up in side streets, and boys and men of all ages come together to either play or sit and watch from the pavements as players show off their game.
“Since a very long time ago, sock ball has been important here,” Amin said.
‘Sock ball,’ once a poor man’s game in Egypt, now a football celebration
https://arab.news/jrbt6
‘Sock ball,’ once a poor man’s game in Egypt, now a football celebration
- “The sock ball in Alexandria is so special, it has its own enjoyment,” said Ahmed Youssef, a sock player in Alexandria
- A game of skill and strategy, as loyal fan Ibrahim Abu Al Wafa described it
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
