CAIRO — At least 25 soccer fans died on Sunday in a confrontation with the police at the gates of a stadium, morgue officials said, in the latest flash of violence to confront the military-backed government as it struggles to restore security 18 months after coming to power.
The death toll was expected to rise.
The hard-core fans known as Ultras are proud of their long history of battling the police and they often formed the front lines of the violent protests that followed the Arab Spring revolt here four years ago.
In February 2012, a brawl between rival groups of fans at a match in the city of Port Said killed at least 70 people. The Egyptian authorities became so worried about their inability to control the crowds that for the past three years they have banned fans from soccer games, forcing teams to play in virtually empty stadiums.
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James M. Dorsey, author of a widely followed blog about Middle East soccer, said the riot on Sunday night was a troubling setback for President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who claimed to restore order after the military takeover he led in 2013.
“It becomes increasingly difficult to argue that you have re-established security and law and order when you can’t afford to open the stadiums,” he said, noting that for any authoritarian government “the soccer stadium is one of the few public spaces they cannot control in absolute terms.”
The game, held at a stadium owned by the military in an outer area of Cairo called the Fifth Settlement, was nonetheless played to completion. Zamalek tied ENPPI, the Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries club, with one goal each, the state news media reported.
