Egypt is hosting for the very first time the finals of the prestigious PSA World Tour Finals after an agreement was reached by the Professional Squash Association (PSA) and title sponsors CIB.
They are bringing the world’s leading squash players to Mall of Arabia for the 2018/2019 edition of the season-ending tournament, starting today and till the 14th of June.
The world tour finals have been previously held in Dubai over the past three seasons, and venues included Burj Khalifa, Dubai Opera and Emirates Golf Club.
“The PSA World Tour Finals always provides a fitting climax to the PSA World Tour season and we are excited to be staging this season’s tournament in Cairo,” said PSA Chairman and A. A. Turki Group of Companies (ATCO) Chairman Ziad Al-Turki.
“With a number of the sport’s highest-ranking players hailing from Egypt, squash already has significant presence and popularity in the country, and we hope to build on that by holding the World Tour Finals there.”
CIBChief Executive and Board Member, Hussein Abaza, said: “We are delighted to sponsor the PSA World Tour Finals and remain committed to supporting world-class squash in Egypt. We have been involved in a number of major tournaments in the region already this season, while we will also serve as title sponsor for the PSA Women’s World Championships, which will bring the world’s best back to the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of the most iconic venues in sporting history.”
Mohamed Salah a star football player is transferring from Liverpool and is willing to join Barcelona. He had been one of the best players in the premier league, is linked to Barcelona in the past, though his deal never came into fruition because the cost was too high. Though his deal expires with liver pool next year, the club needlessly needs to sell him or risk losing him for free. Barcelona considers Liverpool a difficult negotiator though his deal having to consider a deal from Philipe Coutinho. The Catalan team is chasing salah, but is the deal really worth it to him, or not. Mohamed Salah a football player will cost more on just one team in terms of salary, agent fees, and transfer fees. Salah is in negotiation with big teams however Barcelona is not pursuing the option actively as they want to stay on liverpools good terms. Salah is in negotiation with big teams as he continues to search for his deal with several big clubs. All in all salah is rumored to have his deal with many clubs, do you think he should leave Liverpool or not.
Egypt’s squash player Ali Farag won the Optasia Championship title at the Wimbledon Club in London despite a warm-up injury ahead of the match on Saturday, using his victory speech to highlight the discrepancies in sports and politics.
“One more thing that I know is going to get me in trouble, but you know we’ve all seen the what’s going on in the world at the moment with Ukraine and nobody is happy about what’s going,” Farag said.
“Nobody should ever accept any killings in the world, any oppression. But we’ve never been allowed to speak about politics in sports, but all of a sudden now it’s allowed. So, that we’re allowed, I hope that people also look at the oppression everywhere in the world,” he added.
“I mean, the Palestinians have been going through that for the past 74 years and, well, I guess because it doesn’t fit the narrative of the of the media of the West, we couldn’t talk about it, but now that we can talk about the Ukraine, we can talk about Palestinians. So please keep that in mind,” Farag continued.
Farag, World’s No. 2, triumphed 4-11, 11-8, 11-8, 13-11 against World No. 6 Diego Elias at Optasia. His speech was not included in the highlights of the match on the Youtube channel of PSA.
Starting out his story from 2008, he was a player in Zamalek, Abogabal in Egypt Assuit. His real name is Hamad Kotb Abu Gabal Ali, he started his role as a goal keeper since he was a junior player in the youth club of Assuit. In 2008 he started out to play for the ENNPI Egyptian club as a goal keeper, up to 2013. Following the young boy’s passion, it was his dream to play for al Zamalek Club, he stayed there for 3 consecutive years and switched to Smouha at 2019. “According to his father’s advice, he told him the world is always ups and downs, when it’s your turn stay humble”. In 2021 he participated in Egypt’s national team as a goal keeper, he had his chance to shine and succeed in front of the world.