The Zamalek Sporting Club, initially called Qasr El-Nil, was founded in 1911 by a Belgian lawyer called Merzbach, and until 1930 was run solely by foreigners.
In 1913 the club changed its name to Mokhtalat and established its first football team. Egyptians were excluded from the team for several years until Merzbach annulled the rule and the legendary Hussein Hegazy came to prominence in 1919.
The team blossomed with the performances of Hegazy and won the Egypt Cup in 1922, the first official competition overseen by the Egyptian Football Association.
Merzbach stepped down as the club’s chairman two years later, making way for fellow Belgian Bianchi.
In 1930 an extraordinary general assembly decided to expel all foreigners from the club after a campaign led by Hegazy.
In 1944 King Farouk was delighted to see the club crush arch-rivals Ahly 6-0 in a memorable Egypt Cup final and had the team renamed Farouk after himself.
The club was finally named Zamalek following the 1952 army-led revolution which overthrew Farouk and ended Egypt’s monarchy.
Zamalek won their first league title in 1960, 12 years after the inauguration of the competition, which had been dominated by Ahly in its first decade.
The club went on to win a host of trophies, including five African Champions League triumphs.
They were named the second greatest African team of the 20th century, behind Cairo rivals Ahly, by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Zamalek’s major titles:
Egyptian Premier League: 11 times (1960, 1964, 1965, 1978, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1993, 2001, 2003, 2004).
Egypt Cup: 21 times (1922, 1932, 1935, 1938, 1941, 1943, 1944, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1975, 1977, 1979, 1988, 1999, 2002, 2008)
Egyptian Super Cup: 2 times (2001, 2002)
African Champions League: 5 times (1984, 1986, 1993, 1996, 2002)
African Cup Winners’ Cup: 1 time (2000)
African Super Cup: 3 times (1994, 1997, 2003)
Most prominent stars: Hussein Hegazy, Mohamed Latif, Hanafi Bastan, Helmi Zamora, Hamada Emam, Abdou Noshy, Essam Bahig, Taha Basry, Hassan Shehata, Farouk Gaafar, Ibrahim Youssef, Ismail Youssef, Gamal Abdel-Hamid, Nader El-Sayed, Hazem Emam, Emmanuel Quarshie (Ghana), Emmanuel Amunike (Nigeria), Hossam Hassan.
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