WeeklySA_AdminMOROCCO IGNORES FANS’ PLEAS TO DUMP AFCON
CONTROVERSY: EMOTIONS RUN HIGH IN THE AFTERMATH OF AFCON FINAL AS DOZENS OF IRATE MOROCCANS BOMBARD SOCIAL MEDIA, PROPAGATING FOR SWITCH TO EUROPE’S UEFA’, SAYING AFRICA – ‘IN ITS CURRENT FOOTBALLING CULTURE AND BEHAVIOURAL NORMS’ – DOES NOT ‘DESERVE’ MOROCCO…
By Own Correspondent
Morocco has not applied to quit the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to join Europe’s UEFA, despite viral social media claims that surfaced after the recent AFCON final, according to Morocco World News.
Online posts suggested Morocco had launched a formal process to switch confederations — with some even claiming the country would play at Euro 2028.
But Morocco World News reports that there is no official request – “no legal process underway, and no confirmation from the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), FIFA or UEFA”.
These fake and deceptive posts, sometimes presented as emotional calls by citizens and at other times framed as breaking news, were shared thousands of times and gradually merged sporting frustration with legal misinformation, turning anger into alleged ‘facts’.
The Morocco World News report adds: “Some elitist narratives went further, lamenting what was described as a growing mismatch between Morocco’s state-of-the-art stadiums and organisational infrastructure and what critics portrayed as an African football habitus still shaped by entrenched behavioural patterns and inherited practices, reflecting modes of conduct that have been slow to evolve alongside material modernisation.
“In its most extreme formulation, some voices reduced this argument to the claim that Africa, in its current footballing culture and behavioural norms, did not ‘deserve’ Morocco.
“Put more bluntly by some commentators, this line of argument viewed that Morocco had raised its standards beyond what the continental environment could absorb, and that elevating those standards was seen – rightly or wrongly – as a mistake”.
On the other hand, the publication reports that ‘hardline Africanist voices’ also left their imprint on this discourse, going as far as asserting that continental football should remain exclusively Black, and “depicting North African presence as an intrusion whose withdrawal – or even outright exclusion – was framed as acceptable, if not preferable and desirable”.
Instead, the report says Morocco’s federation lodged a formal complaint to CAF and FIFA following incidents surrounding the final against Senegal, and that speculation about UEFA reflects fan frustration, not institutional action.
A CAF-to-UEFA move would require multiple layers of approvals and would take years, making the rumour highly unlikely.
