Algeria harasses Moroccan players, confiscates Jerseys showing Kingdom’s full map
Algerian authorities held visiting RS Berkane team for more than ten hours at Algiers airport, after confiscating their jerseys showing a full Morocco map, including the Sahara territory.
Two-time CAF Confederation Cup winner RS Berkane travelled to Algiers to play title-holder USM Alger on Sunday. But the harassment of Algerian authorities is casting a political shadow of what was supposed to be a sportsmanship event.
Algerian security officials in plain clothes were seen in multiple videos on social media harassing and intimidating RS Berkane players and managers, in an attempt to force them to abandon their jerseys.
RS Berkane members insisted to use their jerseys as per CAF rules, which state that teams have to submit their jerseys prior to the game and can no longer change them.
The Moroccan team players and staff accepted to go to the hotel after CAF promises that they will get back their outfits. But up to the time of writing on Saturday, they have yet to receive their jerseys.
RS Berkane said they will not play the match without their jerseys, an event that could expose Algeria to sanctions by CAF and FIFA going as far as declaring RS Berkane winner of a game it couldn’t play and banning the Algerian national team from the African Cup of Nations.
Recidivism
Algeria has track record of politicizing sports to serve a warmongering agenda of its regime.
In 2023, Moroccan local players taking part at the CAF’s CHAN championship made a forced withdrawal after Algerians insisted on their direct flight ban on Moroccan aircrafts.
A year earlier, Algeria showed that its hostility to Morocco has in fact spilled over to sports as it banned Moroccan journalists from covering the event, cut Moroccan anthem when an athlete was celebrated on the podium and mistreated Moroccan participants in the games.
The International Committee of Mediterranean Games decried the political use of the sports event to polish a decaying regime.
“Mediterranean games were not showcased, and some countries were erased from the map of the Mediterranean Sea,” said the committee in a rebuke over the opening ceremony which was rather focused on Algeria only.
The same year, Moroccan underage footballers were attacked by adult fans on the pitch in a final game in Algeria, revealing Algiers incapacity to offer security to athletes.
Led by old men in uniform with a cold-war mindset that controls the press, Algeria is drawing condemnation from a whole continent.
“Sorry Africa, our stadiums are better off without your odors,” this was the reaction of the Algerian regime’s media after their country lost its bid to host the 2025 African Cup of Nations.
Echourouk published the racist comment right after the executive body of the African football (CAF) voted for Morocco as a host of the 2025 continental championship.
Algeria said on the eve of the vote it was withdrawing to spare itself another diplomatic blow. The decision however was rejected by CAF and perceived as a bad loser act.
