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Carnegie to share expertise with Egyptian universities
As part of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games International Inspirations (II) Sport Legacy Programme, and in collaboration with UK Sport, Youth Sport Trust and the British Council, our University has secured an important bid to work with two Egyptian universities to support the academic development of a Sport Management and Sport Marketing curriculum.
Egypt has witnessed significant growth in the private and commercial sport sector in recent years. This has been precipitated by the growing middle classes with more disposable income to spend on leisure activities such as sport. Consequently the key stakeholders in the Egyptian sports sector have identified the need to enhance the skills and competencies of the workforce in this rapidly emerging market.
Leeds Metropolitan University has a long history of delivering programmes in the field of sport management and we were the first institution in British Higher Education to run academic courses and training in Sport Marketing and PR. It is hoped that this project will provide training for today's educators and the sport managers of tomorrow, raise expectations and help them deal with the current sport challenges in Egypt.
Colleagues Dr Ian Richards and Angela Green from the School of Sport in the Carnegie Faculty and Lucy Laville in the Faculty of Business and Law have recently returned from a successful visit to Helwan University in Cairo. Helwan University is one of the partner institutions in the project and it was here that the team inaugurated a two day Symposium, "Sport Marketing Current Challenges".
The purpose of the event was to launch an International Academy for professional training in sport management and marketing related areas. The event proved to be a huge success with delegates from industry as well as academia. The event secured significant media coverage in the local and national press. The Leeds Met Team, who delivered the keynote speech at the event, participated in a live one hour broadcast on Nile International TV which has a viewership across the Middle East. The project has a further twelve months to run and the team are looking forward to further work in Egypt in the future.