The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has invited a high-level delegation of European football officials and former famous football players from Italy, Germany, Spain and Portugal to visit Egypt on the 14th of January 2009 within the framework of FAO’s global TeleFood campaign to fight poverty and hunger under the auspices of the First Lady, Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak, who was appointment in October 2008 as “Raiyaa” of FAO’s activities and the TeleFood Programme.

The delegation includes former famous football players such as; Paolo Rossi (Italy) and Hans Peter Muller (Germany), in addition to Jose Luis Aistiazarán, the President of the Spanish Football League; Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, the Chief Executive Officer of European Professional Football Clubs Association (EPFL); Thomas Gunter Bender, Chief Marketing Officer of the German Football League and Manuel Jose, the Coach of Al-Ahly Football Team and representative of the Portuguese Football League.

The delegation will arrive to Cairo on the 13th of January. On Wednesday, the 14th, the delegation will visit some models of FAO’s TeleFood projects at Al-Fayoum Governorate. At 16:00, a press conference will be held at the Egyptian National Sports Council.

This visit comes as part of the preparations of the global “Professional Football Against Hunger” solidarity campaign, which was agreed upon between the FAO and the European Professional Football Leagues Association (EPFL), which involves twenty-eight Member Leagues and Associate Member Leagues and represents more than 900 professional football clubs across Europe.

The purpose of the visit is to shed more light on the achievements of the TeleFood programme in a number of countries and the collaboration between FAO and Egypt in fighting poverty and hunger, particularly in the rural areas.