A South African newspaper has published an apology after reporting that Egypt's footballers had caroused with prostitutes, Inas Mazhar reports On Sunday 5 July, the Sunday World published a formal apology to Egypt's national team players, officials and fans for an earlier report claiming the players had been caught with ladies of the night during the FIFA Confederations Cup. The story broke last month when members of the Egyptian delegation announced they had returned to their hotel rooms after their historic 1-0 win over Italy at Ellis Park in Johannesburg to find thieves had made off with $2,400 of their cash. But Sunday World gave a different version of events, quoting police sources as alleging that the players had fallen foul of light-fingered female consorts at an impromptu victory party. The paper quoted an anonymous security source who claimed the Egyptians were caught up "drinking and womanising". Egypt's Ambassador to South Africa Badreddin Zayed had threatened to take legal action against the newspaper if it failed to provide evidence. Zayed was speaking at a press conference held in Pretoria and attended by a top security official who denied the newspaper's allegations. It took the newspaper a week after the press conference to issue an apology. But it came just in time, on the day the Egyptian team thrashed Rwanda 3-0 to keep their hopes of reaching the 2010 World Cup alive. Under the headline 'OOPS, WE BOOBED -- SORRY', Sunday World published the following: "Our June 21 story about five Egyptian players inviting prostitutes to their hotel room has come back to bite us in the bum. Our well placed sources, who swore to provide evidence supporting their allegations, have since failed to stand by the information they gave us. Our sources include highly placed soccer officials, a senior police officer, hotel staff and a politician. Since publication of the story, we have been flooded with e-mails from Egyptian fans disputing the story and demanding an apology. We took this long to act because, until now, we felt certain we had first-hand witnesses. It is not clear to us if they are scared to speak out, or if they simply lied to us. One even told us of video footage in the possession of a cabinet minister, which could not be released, but which he had seen. But then, Sunday World is big enough to say we have boobed, when we have, and this time we say so. We therefore apologise to the Egyptian team and the Egyptian people for the embarrassment the story might have caused them."
