Learning on the job: Handball World Cup in Egypt

The 2021 Handball World Cup was held in Egypt this year and a Bachelor’s student at Geneva Business School had the unique opportunity for a student of Sports Management, to help organize the event and attend the International competition.

Our Sports Management student, Seif El Sheshtawy, had a phenomenal experience and recently reached out to us to share his story and an article featuring himself, how he organized the tournament and also how he kept the teams entertained and having fun in the popular Egyptian newspaper “el youm el 7â€:

“I wanted to tell you about the experience of a lifetime that I gained in the past 3 weeks of the Handball World Cup; I got an opportunity from the International Handball Federation (IHF) to become a supervisor of 16 different teams and the media. I was staying with the teams and players in the hotel for the past 3 weeks and I organized everything from A-Z that has to do with their needs and necessities. Such as organizing the hotel rooms and how to keep each team on a different floor and without any distributions to make sure they’re resting and focusing well. I also scheduled their gym time, food time, and their bus times to and from both trainings and matches. Moreover, I made sure everything was working perfectly and that each and every team is totally satisfied. I really wanted to share this experience with you to tell you how this opportunity helped me, a sports management student, and will help me in the future as a sports management graduate.â€

…Although the Egyptian handball team bade farewell to the World Championship in Egypt, Egypt has made several gains at the level of various fields, including that the Egyptian team won the respect and appreciation of the tournament teams due to the wonderful performance presented by the players in the matches against Denmark, the world champion, in addition to the praises of all countries Participation in the championship due to the excellent organization despite the circumstances of the Coronavirus that various countries suffer from.

The idea came through the trio Seif El Shishtawy, Sherif Salah, and Jamal Ghanem, members of the Residency Committee and Volunteers in the Organizing Committee of the tournament, to emphasize promoting the championship, benefiting from it economically, and supporting tourism activity.

Among the most important gains in the tournament is also the memorial mural, which was proposed by one of the volunteers, the young Seif El Shishtawy, that members of teams and delegations sign the mural that bears the signatures of the members of the missions participating in the tournament.

The mural saw a large number of stars of the national teams in all hotels designated for the tournament to sign and leave their impression on organizing the tournament and on Egypt…