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Join on Telegram Rabat – Fearing severe sanctions after Morocco’s Lawyers Club filed a lawsuit against him for “insulting the dignity of Moroccans,” beIN Sports journalist Hafid Derradji met with Mustafa Boutoura, Algeria’s ambassador to Doha, to ask for help, sources from Qatar have told Morocco World News.
The sources shared with MWN exclusive information indicating that Derradji met with the Algerian ambassador in the Gulf country and asked for his mediation to help diffuse the potential legal repercussions of the popular backlash he has been facing for denigrating Moroccans.
The controversial Algerian journalist’s search for help comes after screenshots of his conversation with a Moroccan woman showed him insulting Moroccan women and describing Moroccans in general as “bastards.”
“The whole world knows that you [Moroccans] are sons of a b**. When we say a Moroccan woman, we say b** and when we say a Moroccan man, we say son of a b**. The latest figures claim that 50% of Moroccans are bastards,” Derradji said, according to the screenshotted messages.
The messages date back to January 20 following Algeria’s defeat and elimination by Cote d’Ivoire in the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).
As he faced a bitter backlash for his derogatory comments, the sports journalist attempted to dispute the authenticity of the screenshots, claiming that the messages sent to the Moroccan woman were from a fake account that only happened to bear his name.
But the Moroccan woman responded to the claims by releasing a video to prove that the messages she received were indeed from Derradji’s official account.
In the video, the woman showed her inbox and clicked on the account to make sure to enable viewers to see the account was not a fake profile of Derradji and was verified by Twitter.
Read Also: BeIN Sports Continues To Turn Blind Eye to Derradji’s Insults Against Moroccans
The message sparked outrage in Morocco, prompting the North African country’s Club of Lawyers to file a lawsuit against Derradji in Qatar.
According to Morocco World News’ sources, Derradji has confessed to the Algerian ambassador in Qatar that he indeed sent the messages to the Moroccan woman and is now “concerned” about the lawsuit the Moroccan lawyers’ club has filed against him.
Amid the controversy surrounding Derradji in the past week, many critics have called on his employer to punish the Algerian journalist for his tendency to make offensive comments and settle political scores while commenting on football matches. But beIN Sports is yet to take any serious action against Derradji.
Some reports suggested recently that, as beIN Sports was keen to distance itself from Derradji’s anti-Moroccan rhetoric, it had rerportedly decided to suspend him from commenting on AFCON matches. However, Derradji commented yesterday on the AFCON quarter-finals match between Cameroon and the Gambia.
The sources who spoke to MWN said it is unclear whether the meeting between Derradji and the Algerian ambassador to Qatar resulted in an intervention from the Algerian diplomat to convince beIN Sports to not suspend or fire the embattled Derradji.
But this is not the first time that beIN Sports has turned a blind eye to Derradji’s anti-Moroccan rhetoric.
In August of last year, Derradji joined a Morocco-bashing campaign from Algerian journalists working in different networks, including al Hurra, to demonize Morocco after the country re-established diplomatic relations with Israel.
The beIN Sports journalist called Moroccans “zionists” and urged the Algerian government to maintain its borders closed with Morocco.
He also claimed that Moroccans are a “threat to Algeria and regional stability.”
Moroccans across the world have been calling on beIN Sports to fire the journalist for crossing a red line in his latest insulting comments on the dignity of Moroccan women.
For all the ongoing backlash, however, beIN Sports has remained conspicuously silent on the matter, watching Derradji’s comments without taking any concrete actions against his heavily and inappropriately politicized sport commentary.
