A video posted by the Egyptian Football Association showing national team players reciting Surah Al-Fatihah and Surah Al-Ikhlas inside the locker room has sparked a wave of controversy on social media platforms.
Pro-Israel and right-wing Western accounts took it out of its sporting context and presented it as "religious incitement".
According to tracking the spread of the claim, the controversy was sparked by a post from an account named "Safaa Sobhi," which claimed that the recitation represented "a prayer against others," before it was adopted by foreign accounts and translated into multiple languages.
Accounts like "Michael" and "Dalia Kurtz"—a Jewish journalist who supports Israel—contributed to amplifying the narrative, and the clip quickly spread into languages such as English, French, and Dutch. With each translation and quotation, the video moved away from being a typical spiritual practice for Muslim players, transforming into fodder for broader debates targeting Islam, with some even linking it to issues of minorities and identity
The Egyptian Football Association proudly shared this video entitled: The Secret To Victory.
The secret is to start your match by cursing the Christians and Jews."
Analyses of the accounts involved in the campaign revealed that it did not originate from a single center, but rather a convergence of diverse accounts ranging from supporters of Israel, to activists from the anti-Islam Western right, and researchers in pro-Israel institutions such as "Dan Burmawi" and "Hussein," in an attempt to employ the clip within ready-made narratives about "religious hatred" and "exclusion," despite the emergence of scattered attempts to correct the claims and state that the video was free of any offensive phrases.
This manufactured controversy comes at a time when the Egyptian national team achieved a victory over its New Zealand counterpart by three goals to one, in the match that brought them together at "PC Place" stadium as part of the second round of the group stage of the 2026 World Cup. The goals of the "Pharaohs" were scored by Mostafa "Zico", Mohamed Salah and Mahmoud "Trezeguet", while Finn Surman scored New Zealand's only goal.
