TMG Madinaty you said?

The Egyptian Squash Federation’s Fram Gommendy goes behind the scenes with TMG: Talaat Moustafa Group, whose Madinaty Sports Club is hosting the 2022 WSF Women’s World Team Squash Championship.

Squash in Egypt – and through their PSA sponsoring, around the world – has been supported by a few splendid Real Estate Sponsors, and it’s a great pleasure to see a new arrival at the forefront of our sport, TMG.

HISTORY OF THE GROUP

So, yes, I could bore you to death with the usual statistical lines, square metres, blahblah. You can find that on their official site. But I prefer to give you my perception of the TMGroup’s achievements, which are much, much bigger than what I have experienced, but still.. It will give you a little feel of it all…

Al-Rehab

The first thing that struck me when I was introduced to TMG was the scope of it all, the vision. One of our best Squash Coaches, Mr Ashraf Hanafi lives with his family in a city developed by TMG, an incredible city called “Al-Rehab”.

For those of you who don’t have a Cairo Map in the head: from the left (West) you have 6th October/Giza/Pyramids; then the middle of the city, Maadi/Zamalek; go east and you’ll find New Cairo; then on the way to Soukna/Hurghada/Gouna, Al-Rehab and then Madinaty.

I have to say I was surprised by the concept. A whole city with houses, buildings, sport facilities, supermarkets, malls, plenty of green areas/trees, even their own taxis, surrounded by huge security gates, making it like a perfect place to live really. And so clean. So airy.

Madinaty: First impression

But I was not prepared for Madinaty.

A few years ago, during a local event at Black Ball, Ziad El-Shazly, who has been working for TMG for over 25 years all around the world, from Sweden to Saudi and now back to Cairo, invited me to visit the Sport Club in Madinaty, Madenty as the locals nicknamed it. He had a dream for this place, dream that seemed to have become a reality, with the Worlds being organised here….

Huge. Airy. Clean. Easy Traffic. Large avenues. Trees. Flowers. Green. People walking in the streets. Calm. Space. Secure. Quiet. Having the time. Relaxing. Time to Breathe.

I’m not lucky enough to have kids or grandkids, but it’s a place you would love to be able to raise your children, was my first impression of Madinaty.

Of course, the Sports Club. That’s the place I know most as I came here to cover a few events organised by Ziad when he was in charge here. So first thing is “lord it’s a bit far away”, but once you are there, you think “thank the Lord, it’s far away…”. If that makes sense?

And if you like shopping, they just opened one of the – if not the largest – Open Air Malls in the Middle-East…

And the Four Season – Nile

What can I say about the Four Seasons brand that hasn’t been said already?

In 1995, TMG  identified a gap in the luxury hotel market in Egypt, acquired land and constructed the Four Seasons Resort Sharm El Sheikh, and Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza, which were opened in 2002 and 2004, respectively. Then in July 2007, TMG opened its third Four Seasons hotel in Alexandria.

We were blessed thanks to CIB sponsoring in the last World Champs to stay in the Cairo Four Seasons Nile Plaza.

And wait for it. They are actually building a fourth one, right in the centre of Madinaty. I kid you not.

So, if this time round for the event, we are staying in an hotel outside Madinaty – as there are no hotels there yet – I hope next time we’ll stay in the brand new Four Seasons.

Please Mr Hisham? 🙂