Rabat – French former football player and sports commentator at ESPN Frank Leboeuf sparked widespread outrage after he made controversial statements about Morocco following the national team’s 2-0 victory against Belgium in the ongoing Qatar World Cup. Lebouef on Tuesday expressed his apologies to Moroccans.
Lebouef celebrated the Atlas Lions’ win on Sunday, saying: “I am so happy for Morocco.” But added, “I think it’s hard maybe for the people who are watching us to put Morocco [on] a map … It is a small country … a poor country where lots of people are suffering.”
He also claimed that most players in Morocco’s national team “come from France and have double nationality,” but chose to represent their home country.
Contradicting his negative remarks, he expressed his admiration for the North African country’s culture, as well as Moroccan football players’ and fans’ love for their country, but in a way that was deemed by many to be rather false and condescending.
Leboeuf criticized Morocco saying it has three times less financial means compared to a country that is substantially smaller. In his remark he used Scotland as a comparison.
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His comments were not well received by Moroccan viewers, who criticized Leboeuf’s ignorance and poor depiction of Morocco. A Twitter user described Leboeuf’s comments as “mind-blowingly condescending.”
Others noted that only two players representing Morocco in the ongoing World Cup hold a French nationality, Sofiane Boufal and Romain Saiss, adding that the majority of Morocco’s squad were locally trained.
After receiving immense backlash, the former French footballer posted a video to his Instagram apologizing to Moroccans, saying that he never meant to insult or degrade Morocco.
“I was wrong about dual nationality and I’m really, really sorry … I said that Morocco was difficult to put on the map … for Americans … in some states, we don’t even know that Paris is the capital of France,” he added.
