CAS slaps Algeria’s football federation, worst yet to come

Bent on militarizing and politicizing sports, Algeria’s football federation FAF has reaped but slaps one after the other with the most recent blow being delt by the Court of Arbitration for Sport CAS in the Morocco map saga.

CAS has rejected FAF’s request to suspend a decision by Africa’s football federation CAF which declared RS Berkane winner in game opposing it to USMA due to Algerian authorities’ decision to withhold the visiting teams jerseys.

Both FAF and USMA espoused the Algerian military regime’s decision to prevent RS Berkane from playing with jerseys that they have used in previous matches on ground that they feature a map of Morocco, including its southern Sahara territory.

USMA and the FAF doubled down in the second leg match when they refused to enter the pitch insisting on politicizing sports, a decision that cost them a departure from the competition.

RS Berkane will play Egypt’s Zamalek in the final of the African Confederation Cup, while Algeria’s USMA and FAF should brace for tough sanctions after an unjustified withdrawal.

The CAS decision also shows that the worst is yet to come for an Algerian football led astray by a military junta blinded by hostility to Morocco’s territorial integrity.

Berkane, once a rear-base for Algeria’s liberation army, saw its sons ill-treated in Algerian airports and insulted by Algerian media.

History also shall remember that Morocco’s football federation was punished and the national squad was banned from playing internationally for a year in 1958, after Morocco played a friendly against Algeria’s national squad when the country was under French colonial rule. Morocco was punished because it played against a team unrecognized by FIFA.

In pursuit of the Polisario’s separatist chimera, Algeria has isolated itself politically and economically and now it is sabotaging its own sports.

Besides USMA saga, Algeria’s U17 handball team has withdrawn from an Arab championship to avoid playing against a Moroccan squad with jerseys bearing the Kingdom’s full map and the country’s gymnastic national team abandoned an African championship in Morocco.

In seeking to undermine Morocco’s territorial integrity for decades, Algeria is pursuing a self-defeating strategy that will backfire. Sabotaging sports, the only distraction for an impoverished and disenchanted youth, could lead to an implosion instead of the short-term distraction effect sought by a regime that has sapped Algeria’s oil and gas wealth.