The Egyptian Premier League (), commonly known as the El Dawry () and officially known as the ORA League () for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Egypt and the highest level of the Egyptian football league system. The league comprises 20 teams and operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the Egyptian Second Division A. Seasons mostly run from August to May. Unlike most other leagues, games are played on all days of the week.
The Egyptian Premier League was founded in 1948, unifying the local leagues that existed previously. 70 clubs have competed in the league since its founding. Al Ahly have won the title 45 times, more than any other club. Their closest rivals, Zamalek, have won the league 15 times. Only five other clubs have won the league; those clubs are Ghazl El Mahalla, Ismaily, Al Mokawloon Al Arab, Olympic Club, and Tersana.
The Egyptian Premier League is one of the top national leagues, ranked First in Africa according to CAF's 5-year ranking for the 2024–25 season, based on performances in African competitions over the past five seasons. Egyptian teams have won the CAF Champions League a record 18 times, and Al Ahly was named the African Club of the Century by CAF. Two clubs have also won the CAF Confederation Cup.
The Egyptian Premier League once had among highest average stadium attendance in Africa and the Middle East until the Port Said Stadium riot occurred on 1 February 2012 after a league match involving Al Masry and Al Ahly, where 74 people were killed and more than 500 were injured. Since that date, all domestic football matches were played behind closed doors until 2017, when the local security authorities started to allow fans to attend selected matches with gradually increasing numbers starting from 100 attendance only and in 2021, the league started to welcome back thousands of supporters.
History Association football was introduced to Egypt while it was occupied by the British. The first football club in Egypt was El Sekka El Hadid, which was founded in 1903. The Sultan Hussein Cup was founded in 1917, and though it was dominated by English clubs in its first years, until Zamalek won it for the first time in 1921, Egyptian clubs quickly gained power. The Egypt Cup, which no British teams competed in, began in 1922, and won by Zamalek.
The first major football league in Egypt also began play in 1922; consisting of clubs from Cairo, it was called the Cairo League. Three other leagues, in Alexandria, on the Suez Canal, and an obscure league in Bahary began soon afterwards. It was at this time that the clubs Zamalek and Al-Ahly began their dominance, with the two clubs regularly winning the Cairo League and the Egypt Cup.
In 1938, the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) took control of the Cairo Zone Competition, along with the other three leagues. The Cairo Zone Competition was renamed the Cairo League, but otherwise remained mostly unchanged until the mid-1940s. The EFA felt that a national league, rather than many local leagues, was necessary. The President of the EFA passed the idea on to King Farouk I, who was an avid football fan. The Egyptian Premier League was founded by royal decree, and began play in 1948.
Early years (1948–1960) The first match, played on 22 October, was between Zamalek and Al Masry SC, and finished in a 5–1 victory for Zamalek. The match featured the first goal in the Egyptian Premier League, scored by Zamalek's Mohamed Amin, and the first hat-trick in the new league, by Zamalek's Saad Rustom.
During this time, Premier League results in matches between clubs from Cairo were counted as Cairo League results as well. The Cairo League ceased play in the 1952–53 season and was once played again in the 1957–58 season and cancelled after that season with a narrow difference in the list of title winners between Cairo rivals, 15 titles for Al Ahly and 14 titles for Zamalek. Zamalek was focused on the Cairo League, winning three consecutive titles from 1949 to 1952, while Al Ahly was dominating the newly born Egyptian League. Despite the importance for this league, few informed and statistics are available.
Few players rose to prominence in Egyptian football in the 1950s, such as; El-Sayed El-Dhizui, Essam Baheeg, Saleh Selim, Hanafy Bastan, Yakan Hussein, Ahmed Mekkawi, Sharif El-Far, Rifaat El-Fanagily, Alaa El-Hamouly, Ad-Diba, Abdou Noshi, Mahmoud El-Gohary, Nour El-Dali and Adel Hekal. Al Ahly won the first three competitions, though in 1949–50 they required a playoff against Tersana SC. The league was not contested during what would have been the 1951–52 season, as Egypt's national team were competing in the 1952 Summer Olympics. The season also did not take place due to the 1952 Egyptian revolution, in which King Farouk was overthrown. Farouk had allowed his name to be used by his favourite club, which quickly renamed itself Zamalek after the revolution.
Gamal Abdel Nasser, who led the coup and took power after Farouk, was a supporter of Al Ahly, and was named club's honorary president soon after he came to power. This increased the intensity of the already fierce Cairo derby between Al-Ahly and Zamalek. Al Ahly won the competition every season until the 1959–60 season, with the majority in a narrow difference with Zamalek. The 1954–55 season was even stopped when Al Ahly conflicted with the Egyptian Football Association and withdrew. No title was awarded.
Turbulent Times (1960–1974) In the 1959–60 season, Zamalek finally won their first title after consistently being runners-up, and Tersana were runners-up and Al Ahly finished third. Zamalek won three titles this decade with the help of a new generation led by Hamada Emam, Nabil Nosair, Raafat Attia, Abdou Noshi, Samir Qotb, Yakan Hussein, Ahmed Rifaat, Mahmoud Abou-Regaila and others.
Al Ahly's grip on the league loosened; though they did win some titles, in the 1965–66 edition, they finished in 6th out of 12, closer to relegation than to the championship. The decade had five different champions: Ismaily won their first title during this decade, and El-Olympi and Tersana won the league for the only time. Also, the 1962–63 and 1963–64 seasons featured 24 teams, a higher number than ever before.
The league ceased play in 1967 due to the Six-Day War and league play was not resumed until the 1971–72 season. In 1969, Ismaily were allowed to play in the CAF Champions League (then the African Cup of Champion Clubs) as the most recent champions (1966–67 champions). They became the first Egyptian club to win that competition in 1969, though both Al Ahly and Zamalek have now won it many more times.
In 1971, the league was restarted, only to be swiftly suspended again due to fighting at a match between Al Ahly and Zamalek. A controversial penalty for Zamalek which was scored by Farouk Gaafar, this resulted in a pitch invasion from Al Ahly fans after Al Ahly goalkeeper Marwan Kanafany asked the fans to protest, and the dispute was so intense that the league was not allowed to continue, and no winner was declared, despite Zamalek finishing 1st in the table. Ghazl El Mahalla won the league in the 1972–73 season for the only time in their history, but the league was then suspended again for the 1973–74 season because of the Yom Kippur War, and replaced with the October League Cup, which was played once and won by Zamalek.
Post-war Period (1974–2002) In the 1970s, a new generation of talented players emerged in the Egyptian football such as; Hassan Shehata, Mahmoud El Khatib, Taha Basry, Ekramy, Farouk Gaafar, Abdel Aziz Abdel Shafy, Moustafa Abdou, Hassan El Shazly, Ali Khalil, Ali Abo Gresha, Mussad Nur and others. Although this generation did not achieve positive results with their country's national team in the 1970s, the league was a strong tournament and full of talent.
After the Yom Kippur War, Al Ahly won three championships straight, followed by a single championship for Zamalek. This pattern would continue until 1990: Al Ahly would win many championships, followed by a single win for Zamalek, who won their single title in the 1977–78 season with a narrow lead over Al Ahly. This was only interrupted by Al Mokawloon winning the 1982–83 edition. This is the latest time a team has won the League for the first time. The league returned to its 24-team format for the 1975–76 season, but it quickly reverted to a format featuring between 12 and 16 teams. Tersana were close of winning the 1974–75 season and lost in the final week to Al Ahly with a narrow difference. Top goal scorers fluctuated between Hassan Shehata, Mahmoud El Khatib and Ali Khalil. The 1978–79 season was a 12-team format.
In the 1980s, selected foreign players were chosen to play in the league such as Zamalek's Emmanuel Quarshie, and Al Mokawloon's Joseph-Antoine Bell, until the rules were changed with new limitations on foreign players in 1985. Zamalek and Al Ahly also dominated the CAF Champions League, starting with a 1982 triumph for Al Ahly, and Zamalek in 1984 and 1986, followed by Afro-Asian Club Championship for Zamalek in 1987, which Al Ahly won the next year. Al Ahly also won the African Cup Winners' Cup for three consecutive times from 1984 to 1986. Al Mokawloon won the 1983 African Cup Winners' Cup as well. The Egyptian Premier League became the most successful league in that tournament when Zamalek won in 1993, followed by their win in the CAF Super Cup over Al Ahly in 1994, with two Egyptian contenders for the first time in a continental final.
The league was not played in 1990 because of Egypt's qualification for the 1990 World Cup. After this delay, Ismaily won the 1990–91 season, followed by Zamalek winning twice in a row in the 1991–92 and 1992–93 seasons, and after that Al Ahly won every season until the turn of the century. Zamalek and Ismaily briefly rose in power once again between 2000 and 2004, with Zamalek winning 2000–01, 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons and Ismaily's 2001–02 win is the latest time that a team other than Zamalek and Al Ahly have won the title.
Normalcy, then Disaster (2002–2013) Between 2004 and 2011, Al Ahly won every edition of the Egyptian Premier League, occasionally being challenged by Zamalek or Ismaily. They also continued to dominate the CAF Champions League, becoming the most successful team in the competition.
The league was one of the strongest and best-attended in Africa, ranking near the top of the CAF 5-year ranking since its inception. In 2011, another revolution began, part of the Arab Spring, which eventually resulted in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Football featured heavily in the popular uprising, as ultras from clubs such as Al Ahly took part in the revolution.
Port Said Stadium Disaster
On 1 February 2012, a riot began at Port Said Stadium at a match between Al Masry and Al Ahly. Fans of Al Masry had brought weapons and stormed the field after their team won the match. These fans then charged Al Ahly fans, who could not flee because the gates behind them were locked. 74 people, mostly fans of Al Ahly, died of stab wounds, concussions, and suffocation. Over 500 people were injured. In the days after the riot, the police response was questioned—they appeared to do little to protect Al Ahly fans. It was widely speculated that the police themselves had incited the riot, perhaps as revenge for the role of Al Ahly ultras in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak the previous year.
The violence and resulting trial tore Egypt apart for weeks. The season was cancelled, with Haras El Hodoud at the top of the table and possibly heading for a surprise victory. Fans were to be barred from entering matches for years afterwards, but the Egyptian Premier League attempted to get back on its feet the next season.
Behind Closed Doors (2013–2021)