Abdel Halim Mohamed

However, upon his death on 16 April 2009, Sudan Football Association lowered its flag for three days to symbolise mourning. A minute silence was observed before football matches during these three days. Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, paid tribute to Abdel Halim, stating that:

Abdel Halim was married to Khalda Ahmed Khalil in 1942, who died in 1987. They had two daughters and five sons. Abdel Halim died in Khartoum on 16 April 2009, at the age of 99.

Abdel Halim was made an honorary life member of the International Olympic Committee in 1989, and honorary life president of CAF. In 1994, he received the FIFA Order of Merit. However, due to personal disputes with Kamal Shaddad, President of the Sudan Football Association (SFA) (2001-2021), Abdel Halim was not honoured during his life or posthumously by SFA.

As Abdel Halim led the African boycott of the 1976 Summer Olympics, which was in Montreal because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to ban New Zealand after the New Zealand national rugby union team had toured apartheid South Africa earlier in 1976 in defiance of the United Nations' calls for a sporting embargo. Abdel Halim joined the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, in Moscow, as a protest against the Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan.

Abdel Halim stood firm against South Africa and Rhodesia sport-segregation policies and refused to allow their teams to play unless it was mixed. According to el-Keer el-Moutasim, Sudanese sports historian, Abdel Halim took out a loan on his own house to fund the 1970 African Cup of Nations, in Sudan, when official funding was delayed.

Abdel Halim was one of the founders of the Confederation of African Football and the president of the Sudanese Football Association, Sudanese Equestrian Association, Sudanese National Olympic Committee and Sudanese Basketball Association. He served as the third president of the Confederation of African Football from 1968 to 1972 and from 1987 to 1988. He stood firm against South Africa and Rhodesia sport-segregation policies and refused to allow their teams to play unless it was mixed.

In 1970, as CAF president, Abdel Halim secured the vote to suspend Rhodesia's (modern-day Zimbabwe) FIFA membership due to their sport-segregation policies. This came years after the CAF expelled the Rhodesia Football Association from membership, only four days after the country's unilateral declaration of independence on 11 November 1965. The CAF was again the first International sports institution to do so after the CAF expelled Apartheid South Africa in 1957, before the first African Cup of Nations, which was in Sudan, promoting further tension with FIFA, which accused the CAF of mixing sport with politics. Abdel Halim pushed and succeeded in including African nations in the1970 FIFA World Cup, after 36 years of absence since Egypt's participation in the 1934 FIFA World Cup.

Abdel Halim participated in founding the Graduates' General Congress, which later drafted the first memorandum demanding independence from the Anglo-Egyptian occupation. Abdel Halim was also a member of the Committee of Sovereignty of Sudan from December 1964 to July 1965, which presided over the interim coalition Government that paved the way for general elections. In addition, he was the first president of the University of Khartoum council after independence and the mayor of Khartoum.

After the overthrow of General Ibrahim Abboud's dictatorship in 1964, Abdel Halim served as a member of the first and second Committee of Sovereignty, from 3 December 1964 to 8 July 1965 which presided over the interim coalition Government that paved the way for general elections.

Abdel Halim was the first African to be elected as a member of the executive council of the International Association of Football Federation (FIFA) (1958–1962), and later became the head of the medical department of FIFA in 1966.

Abdel Halim was behind the idea of forming an African football association. He was one of the founders of the Confederation of African Football, which was established on 8 February 1957 at the Grand Hotel in Khartoum, Sudan by the national football associations of Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa and Sudan, following formal discussions between the aforementioned associations at the FIFA Congress held on 7 June 1956 at Avenida Hotel in Lisbon, Portugal. He served as the third president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) from 1968 to 1972. Upon Yidnekatchew Tessema's sudden illness and death on 19 August 1987, Abdel Halim served as the (fifth) president of the CAF until 10 March 1988, when the general assembly was held in Casablanca, and Issa Hayatou was elected president of CAF.

In 1956, Abdel Halim became the Khartoum District Council’s president and mayor of Khartoum until 1960.

Abdel Halim was the president of the Sudan Football Association (1953), the Sudan Basketball Association (1960), the Sudan Equestrian Association, and the Sudan Olympic Committee (1956–1958 and 1964–1970). He was a member of the International Olympic Committee from 1968 until 1982.

Abdel Halim was a council member of the Gordon Memorial College from 1952, before becoming the first Sudanese chairman of the University Khartoum council, after Sudan became independent in 1956. He held the position until he retired from medical duties in 1965.

Abdel Halim became the first Sudanese director of Omdurman Teaching Hospital (1950) and Khartoum Teaching Hospital (1954–1964). He was appointed senior physician to the Ministry of Health in 1953. He expanded these hospitals to include respiratory, cardio, neurology, neurosurgery and dermatology services and organised the building of the Al Shaab Teaching Hospital. After independence, he also taught at the Kitchener School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum.

Abdel Halim was the founding president of the Sudanese Medical Association (1949–1965). He was one of the first Sudanese physicians to become a member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1948, and to be elected a Fellow (FRCP) in 1962. In 1965, Abdel Halim received an honorary Doctor of Medicine (MD) from the University of Khartoum.

Abdel Halim was among the founders of the Graduates' General Congress in 1938 that later drafted the first memorandum in 1942, demanding independence from the Anglo-Egyptian occupation. Abdel Halim was the political adviser and confidant to Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, one of the leading religious and political figures during the colonial era in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Abdel Halim started his medical training as a house physician at Khartoum Teaching Hospital (1933–1934) and then as a medical registrar (1935–1938). He then continued his training in medicine and cardiology at Hammersmith Hospital, London, in 1939. Due to the Second World War, he had to return to the Khartoum Teaching Hospital to work as an assistant to the senior physician. Still, after the war, he returned to the UK to finish his medicine and cardiology training.

Like many at that time, Abdel Halim started his education at a Quranic school (Khalwa) before entering Omdurman Primary School. He then went to Gordon Memorial College (today University Khartoum) in 1924, into accountancy, before attending Kitchener School of Medicine (today Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum) (1929–1933) and graduated top of his class with a Diploma of Kitchener School of Medicine (DKSM).

With his cousin, Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub, Abdel Halim founded the ‘Hashmab society’, which advocated for education and enlightenment in Sudan. At the end of the 1920s, the society evolved to become ‘Al Fajr’ (the Dawn, Arabic: الفجر ) society which established its magazine in 1934 that was committed to Sudanese folklore, culture and nationalist movements. Abdel Halim regularly contributed to Al Fajr magazine under a pen name. A book published by Muhammad Ahmad Mahgoub and Abdel Halim, titled “Death of a world” (Mot Donia Arabic: موت دنيا ), advocated personal sacrifice for the national cause. They wrote in its introduction:

Abdel Halim Mohamed Abdel Halim FRCP (Arabic: عبد الحليم محمد عبد الحليم, 10 April 1910–16 April 2009) was a Sudanese physician, writer, political activist, civil servant, and sports administrator.

Abdel Halim Mohamed Abdel Halim Musaad Hashim (Arabic: عبد الحليم محمد عبد الحليم مساعد هاشم) was born in Omdurman, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, on 10 April 1910 into the ‘Hashmab’ family, a family of scholars, writers and politicians with a pedigree equal to many of the gentry. Abdel Halim was named after his grandfather, a Mahdist prince and military leader, who played a decisive role in the defeat of the British colonel Hicks Pasha in the battle of Shaykan in 1883, the siege and fall of Khartoum in 1885, and died at the Battle of Toski on 3 August 1889.