‘From the pursuit of science to football’: colonialism, education and Ḥussein Ḥegāzī’s football career

When Ḥussein Ḥegāzī began playing football as a young boy in the streets of Cairo in the late nineteenth century, the sport was little more than a children’s pastime — something he was expected to abandon once he entered formal schooling. Yet, remarkably, Hegazi’s football career extended well into his forties and continued even after his retirement, when he was appointed a football ‘expert’ in the Ministry of Education. Using Hegazi’s trajectory as a lens, this essay examines the broader educational, social, and political transformations that turned football from an informal street game into a curricular subject, a popular sport, and ultimately a source of national pride in Egypt.