World football body FIFA has dispatched investigators to Egypt to probe allegations of government interference as the country prepares for potentially risky bids to host two international tournaments, the 2017 Beach Soccer World Cup and the 2018 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup.

The FIFA investigation and the bids come against the background of a military coup that last year toppled Egypt’s first and only democratically elected president and a presidential election this month likely to effectively cement the military’s grip on the country, which is marred by a brutal crackdown on regime opponents and political freedoms in which more than 3,000 people have been killed, some 17,000 wounded and 19,000 detained.

The investigation focuses on the government’s forcing of elections in March of presidents of Egypt’s two foremost clubs, storied Cairo arch rivals Al-Ahly SC and Al-Zamalek SC, whose militant supporters played a key role in the toppling of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and subsequent anti-military protests.

… James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He is also co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.