Cairo, Egypt – Four days after he disappeared from the Egyptian team camp at the 2026 Under-20 World Wrestling Championships in Slovakia last month, 19-year-old wrestler Ziad Hajjaj Abu Gabal posted a message on Facebook. I won’t go back to Egypt, my beloved country, until I bring it honour. In his Facebook post on August 29, Al-Shami said he had come to feel like a financial burden on his family and that he wanted to start earning money for them.
Indeed, Hajjaj and al-Shami are far from the first Egyptian wrestlers to flee while abroad, and the hardships they describe are widely shared across the sport in Egypt. A 27-year-old wrestler, who won several gold medals for Egypt and asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera that fellow athletes under 20 years old earn 700 Egyptian pounds ($13.7) to 800 ($15.7) Egyptian pounds a month. Older international players reportedly receive between 5,000 pounds ($98.2) and 12,000 pounds ($235.7) a month, depending on their achievements.
Ahmed Baghdouda left for France in 2023 immediately after winning silver at the African Wrestling Championships, reportedly over low pay. Tarek Abdel Salam defected to Bulgaria in 2017 amid alleged medical neglect and later won European gold under Bulgaria’s flag. That year, Ibrahim Ghanem also chose to stay in France, subsequently winning a World Championship title for the country.
In October 2025, Mohamed Ibrahim el-Sayed – popular as Kishu and a six-time African wrestling champion, two-time U23 world champion, and bronze medallist in the 67kg category at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – announced he had taken “the first step” towards switching his sporting allegiance to represent the United States, posting training photos from a facility with the US flag behind him. Asked by Al Jazeera through a messaging app why wrestlers keep fleeing Egypt, Kishu blamed the wrestling federation. When I retire, what am I supposed to do?
God forbid I get injured – what happens to me then?” “I would take the same decision again and again and I advise Egypt’s international players to focus on their training and acquire their rights because it’s their lives that are being wasted.” Al Jazeera reached out to the president and the vice president of the Egyptian Wrestling Federation (EWF), as well as the president of the Egyptian National Olympic Committee (ENOC), for their comments, but none of them responded. However, the EWF’s team psychologist Hossam Mohamed said the disappearance of players abroad is not simply down to poor financial compensation or neglect, insisting the state provides good support to wrestlers – whether through financial bonuses, training camps abroad, or accommodation and meals. He said medal bonuses can reach 5 million Egyptian pounds ($98,135) for an Olympic gold.
Gamal el-Badrawy, a former head of Egypt’s kickboxing federation, called on the Ministry of Youth and Sports to impose tighter oversight of national sporting federations and to review bonuses, allowances and health insurance. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Ministry of Youth and Sports has referred Hajjaj and al-Shami to the public prosecutor, accusing them of breaking the rules governing national delegations. The ENOC separately referred Brigadier General Ibrahim Adel – EWF secretary-general and head of the wrestling delegation at the tournament in Taranto – to its ethics committee for investigation and suspended him from his duties for allowing al-Shami to escape.
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