In a wave of court rulings that have been met by both approval and dismay, Cairo's Court of Urgent Matters ruled Saturday that all groupings of hard-core football fans, widely known as "ultras," were illegal and banned nationwide for their association with acts of violence and vandalism.
According to the state-owned Al-Ahram, the ultras were declared terrorist organizations. Wowza.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Mortada Mansour, chairman of the Cairo-based Zamalek Sporting Club, and negated the ruling of a similar lawsuit filed by Mansour last year when he alleged that members of the Ultras had attempted to kill him.
"The ultras are a criminal phenomenon that should be eradicated," Mansour told the AFP news agency Saturday.
Since the 2011 uprising, the two biggest groupings of football fans, Ultras White Nights and Ultras Ahlawy, were often in the news, sometimes as heroes and sometimes as vandals.
After the Air Defense Stadium "massacre" in February, Egypt's top prosecutor accused the UWK of cooperating with the Muslim Brotherhood to incite violence. The incident left up to 30 dead in a stampede that left many Egyptian mourning.
Despite all the pointed fingers, football fan groups were once considered to be some of the most internally organized and cohesive groups during 2011. The ultras praised for their participation in the 18-day sit in at Tahrir Square, as well as other protests that erupted over the years.
But, today, those days of patriotic glory are long gone.