Mahmoud Nagy appointed referee for Al Ahly’s Egyptian Premier League opener against ENPPI

Mahmoud Nagy has been appointed referee for Al Ahly’s opening Egyptian Premier League match against ENPPI, the Egyptian Football Association has announced.

Al Ahly will face ENPPI at Cairo Stadium on Sunday in the first round of the new Egyptian Premier League campaign.

Nagy will take charge of the match as the referee, with Samir Gamal and Mohamed Magdy Soliman appointed as his assistants. Hesham El Kady will serve as the fourth official.

The video assistant referee team will be led by Khaled Gamal El-Ghandour, who will be supported by El-Sayed Shaaban.

The appointment gives Nagy responsibility for a fixture involving two clubs he refereed several times during the previous season. He oversaw four Al Ahly matches in the last campaign, against Smouha, ENPPI, Haras El Hodoud and National Bank of Egypt.

Al Ahly won three of those four matches, while the other ended in a draw against National Bank of Egypt. Nagy also refereed four ENPPI matches during the same season, although ENPPI did not win any of those games.

Sunday’s fixture will be the first league match of the season for both sides. Al Ahly finished third in the Egyptian Premier League table last season, while ENPPI ended the campaign in sixth place.

The referee appointments were confirmed by the Egyptian Football Association ahead of the meeting at Cairo Stadium. Nagy will be supported on the field by the two assistant referees, while El Kady will be responsible for duties as the fourth official.

The match officials in the video operation will review incidents from the VAR room, with El-Ghandour acting as the video assistant referee and Shaaban serving as his assistant.

Al Ahly’s record in the matches Nagy handled last season will be a notable part of the background to the appointment, with the club recording three victories and one draw across those four fixtures. ENPPI, by contrast, failed to secure a win in any of the four matches involving Nagy.

The clubs therefore begin the new campaign from different positions in last season’s final standings. Al Ahly finished third, while ENPPI completed the league season in sixth.

The Egyptian Football Association’s decision means the full officiating team for the opening-round match is now confirmed, with Nagy in the middle, Gamal and Soliman assisting him, El Kady as fourth official, and El-Ghandour and Shaaban overseeing the video review.