Fram chats openly with Omar about how not easy it was to organise a Diamond event at very short notice
[if you don’t know who is Omar Elborolossy, have a quick read…Fram: First, I’d like to talk a little about the tournament. I know you organise tournaments, but this was a big step. Can you explain how you got the job? It was all a bit last-minute and you had to step in. How did it all fall into your lap, and how did you manage?
Omar: As you said, it was very short notice — even for Event House, the promoter itself. The event was already on the PSA calendar but CIB organised a bidding process, which was won by Event House.
F: But that was done, what, seven or eight weeks before the tournament?
Omar: Seven, eight weeks. Very, very short.
F: Egyptian time.
Omar: Yes. And actually, I was chosen by both sides, CIB and Event House. I’ve been good friends with Moussa AbuTaleb, the owner of Event House, for a long time. The day he got the job, CIB recommended me to him.
Event House is a great company for events and entertainment but CIB wanted someone more technically involved with squash. And since I’m a very good friend of Moussa, both sides were happy with me.
It was a coincidence: they were both thinking of the same name at the same time.
We talked five or six weeks before the event, and the announcement came a week later. So I had about five weeks. Very, very short notice.
But alhamdulillah, everything went perfectly except the sponsorship. For this type of event, with six months instead of five weeks, you can get ten times the sponsorship. That’s why we were so short of money.
Shortage of Sponsorship due to time constraints
That was the only disadvantage, apart from the stress of the timing. I always say we did almost everything perfectly, except this, because of the time constraint with sponsors.
I talked to Amina Orfi’s sponsors, Ezz Steel. They were very interested, but their managing director was travelling for two weeks and we didn’t have time to wait for a decision. I talked to Edita, the sponsors of Mostafa Asal and Hania El Hammamy. They were extremely interested, but it’s the last quarter of the year and the budget is already spent. They all said: if we’d known a couple of months earlier, there would have been more opportunities.
I also wanted a press conference a month before the tournament to announce it with the sponsors, that was physically impossible.
But the logistics — 40 days of full-time work — went well.
Hotel worries
We were short of rooms in both hotels Novotel and Crowne. We considered a third hotel, and then we managed to get a few extra rooms at the Crowne Plaza. All of that is time constraints. But relatively, for what was done in five or six weeks, it exceeded my expectations.
Two venues, two glass courts
Omar: Even the decision to put the glass court at OWest came late.
Normally we get more days at the Pyramids. On the first day I asked for more days there, to avoid having a glass court at all: play the qualifying in the afternoon at OWest on the normal courts, like we did for the Worlds, then move to the Pyramids a couple of days earlier. We could have saved lots of money.
But the Pyramids weren’t available. We couldn’t get the site even a few hours early; we had to take it on a specific date and work very, very fast. The logistics were very challenging on both sides.
And when we decided on the centre court at O West, that area was a desert. There was nothing there.
We brought in huge machines and trucks and laid the paving and the blocks in four or five days. That was handled very well too. The court itself was the old Egyptian Federation court, rented from the Egyptian Squash Federation. Its flooring was very bad, so we put in a new floor and renewed all the Contra Vision sheets.
The court was actually really good.
F: It looked very good. And the PSA photos of it are really great.
Omar: It was very tight. We were working on two sites at once, building two glass courts at the same time, with deadlines.
We did very well on the logistics we could control —we put in a great effort. But we had no control over the financial side, the sponsorship. It was tough. We had to squeeze the budget and make some compromises.
Overall, looking back on those six weeks, I’m extremely happy. I exceeded my own expectations.
The secret? The checklist
Omar: We had two separate teams: an engineering team at O West and another at the Pyramids.
Even on logistics, one of the Event House girls was in charge at O West and another at the Pyramids. I was handling two separate teams for the last couple of weeks. My main role was the checklist, and making sure.
Tic, Tac, Tic, Tac…
I know I’m a very hard worker, but I was panicking with three weeks to go.
We had a WhatsApp group where everyone posted updates. One day I told the whole Event House team: ‘we need to meet in person’. On WhatsApp it feels okay — you send a message, you get a reply, “okay, done.” But is it really?
So we sat together for two or three hours, the old way, with the checklist. I’d spent three days writing it: about 100 items. Details, details, details. Invitations, the glass court at the Pyramids, the glass court at O West, the internet, the buses, the transport, someone at the hotel, recruitment, the ushers, photography, the DJ, the MC…
F: The DJ was good!
Omar: Yes. I asked whether he’d worked before. I’m very detail-oriented: if the DJ is new, he needs to know the routine about the MC, the video reviews, the replays, and the music, and we brief him.
F: It was perfect, because they know it’s not a party. It helps people communicate. If it’s too loud, people just stand there and don’t talk to each other.
Omar: Exactly. After that meeting we had a huge Excel sheet: the to-do list, who’s in charge, updates, remarks. A shared file, so everyone could see who was doing what, who was late and who wasn’t.
My main job was to stay on top of that file and send reminders. How is the court? I went to the Pyramids a week before to check on the work. How is the work at O West? Are they bringing a podium? Do we need a place for the podium? Did you send the IPs for SquashTV? I wasn’t doing the work myself, but I wrote the checklist and made sure it was followed.
I was leading the process — the experience of making sure every detail is covered.
Cleopatra Hospital on board
I brought in Cleopatra Hospital, which was a great deal.
They’re one of the best in the country, if not the best, and having them cover everything takes something off your mind.
We had an ambulance with two teams: when we had to take Lauren Baltayan to hospital, a full team went with the ambulance and the other stayed at the clinic.
Then there were all the logistics with the police and the fire department.
The secret was really the initial checklist…
Q: That’s where your experience in organising events like the World Juniors came in useful!
Omar: Yes. I hadn’t done a PSA tournament like this, but I did the World Juniors last year at Black Ball, July 2025.
To be honest, the Worlds were more difficult: the number of matches, courts and teams, the practice sessions. If you do a big World Juniors like that, you can do anything!!
One anecdote: one day at Black Ball I was late: I got a call from William Louis Marie (World Squash CEO) at 8:30 a.m., because there was a practice session at 8:30 and housekeeping hadn’t opened the courts. That was one day out of 14 that I wasn’t there before practice…
The logistics with juniors are crazy — ten times the effort. So many teams, players, directors and head coaches. Handling some of the Team coaches was not that simple: the AC, the courts, the dust, why this court, why not that one. Sometimes it gets very annoying, but I get along with anyone. Black Ball always has ventilation problems, but we always had extra ACs.
F: Last words, Omar?
Alhamdulillah, I’m extremely happy with what we achieved in five weeks. The logistics went well, even at the last minute. Inshallah, if I do it again and have more time, we can definitely do much better.
