Written by Wael Tawfiq:
Before the start of the new season matches in the Egyptian Premier League on August 21, 2026.. "Yalla Koura" publishes an extensive analysis of 2697 matches held starting from the 2015-2016 season until the 2023-2024 season, and today we publish the first story produced by the data we collected for the "referees" and we will continue to publish the results of the analysis during the coming period.
Through these figures, we review the measurement of clubs' results in the matches managed by the referee, without isolating the effect of the team's strength, the opponent, the match venue, the team's ranking, or the season's circumstances. Therefore, the data here is not used to issue a judgment on the referees' performance, but rather to reveal the extent of repetition of certain relationships between referees and clubs, and the large differences in clubs' results within these relationships.
Which referees managed the most Egyptian League matches from the 2015/16 season to the 2023/24 season?
During the period from 2015/16 to 2023/24, the appointments of Egyptian League referees were not distributed equally among all referees. Out of 2,754 matches in the period, the figures show that the top 10 referees in terms of matches managed led 1,253 matches out of 2,697 (the analysis sample) matches for which a referee was appointed.
At the top came Amin Omar, Mohamed Adel, and Mahmoud El Banna, with 139 matches each, at a rate of 5.15% for each referee, followed by Ibrahim Nour El Din with 138 matches, then Mohamed El Hanafi with 136 matches, Mohamed Maarouf with 134 matches, and completing the list Mahmoud Ashour with 112 matches, Ahmed El Ghandour with 111 matches, Mohamed El Sebaei with 108 matches, and Tarek Magdy with 97 matches.
However, the repetition of appointments does not necessarily mean the repetition of the same result.
What happened to the clubs in the matches managed by these referees?
Al Ahly wins more with Mahmoud Ashour and Tarek Magdy.. Zamalek wins with Amin Omar
When moving from the question "Who manages the most matches?" to the question "What happened to the clubs in the matches managed by these referees?", wide differences appear between the various relationships between the referee and the club.
In the matches managed by Mahmoud El Banna for Al Ahly, the team won 26 out of 35 matches, with a win rate of 74.29%. With Mohamed El Hanafi, Al Ahly won 21 out of 29 matches, at a rate of 72.41%, while its win rate with Ibrahim Nour El Din reached 71.43% in 28 matches.
In contrast, Mahmoud El Banna managed 26 matches for Ismaily, with the team winning 7 of them, against 9 draws and 10 losses, bringing its win rate to 26.92%.
The picture appears even sharper in some other relationships. Ismaily won only 15.79% of its matches with Ibrahim Nour El Din, while its win rate with Ahmed El Ghandour reached 7.69%. With Mahmoud Ashour, Misr El Maqasa achieved no wins in 10 matches, while its win rate with Smouha reached 6.67% in 15 matches.
On the other side, some relationships recorded extremely high rates; Al Ahly's win rate with Mahmoud Ashour reached 80% in 20 matches, and with Tarek Magdy 80% in 10 matches, while Zamalek's win rate with Amin Omar reached 75% in 28 matches.
