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Marrakech – Hours before Morocco vs Brazil kickoff on Saturday, Geert Wilders, the demagogue leader of the Dutch far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), posted a two-word obscenity targeting God in Islam on X.
He captioned a photograph of Moroccan players prostrating in collective prayer after a goal with the words “F*** Allah.” The post detonated an immediate firestorm of condemnation online.
The timing was no accident. It was a calculated act of discursive violence, engineered to wound the largest possible audience at the moment of their greatest collective joy.
The Netherlands hosts one of Europe’s most established Moroccan diasporas. Over 433,000 Dutch residents trace their roots to Morocco, comprising 2.4% of the national population. Their presence dates to the bilateral guest-worker agreements of the 1960s.
Several of the very players Wilders targeted were born and raised on Dutch soil. Manchester United defender Noussair Mazraoui grew up in Leiderdorp. Midfielder Sofyan Amrabat was raised in the Netherlands. Both chose to represent Morocco internationally rather than the Oranje.
A 2025 investigation by Dutch broadcaster NOS found that the rise of far-right hostility is a direct factor driving Dutch-Moroccan players toward the Atlas Lions jersey.
Morocco opened their 2026 World Cup campaign with a creditable 1-1 draw against five-time champions Brazil at MetLife Stadium on Saturday. Ismael Saibari lobbed Alisson to give the Atlas Lions the lead in the 21st minute before Vinicius Junior equalized with a spectacular effort in the 32nd.
The result, watched by 80,663 spectators, reaffirmed Morocco’s standing among football’s elite. Yet the occasion was marred by an act of raw civilizational contempt that no scoreline can eclipse.
Read also: More Moroccan Dutch Are Returning Home as the Netherlands Loses Its Appeal
Wilders is no stranger to this repertoire of dehumanization. A Dutch court convicted him of discrimination in 2016 after he orchestrated a crowd chant demanding “fewer Moroccans” at a 2014 campaign rally. He has called Islam “a fascist religion,” likened the Quran to Mein Kampf, and demanded its prohibition.
He produced the incendiary anti-Islamic film Fitna. His entire political architecture rests on the pathologization of Muslim existence, a project rooted in what scholars of racial discourse identify as eliminationist Othering: the systematic reduction of an entire faith community to objects of revulsion.
This was not his first weaponization of Moroccan football, either. After the AFCON 2025 final earlier this year, in which Morocco faced Senegal, Wilders posted “wollah” alongside a Senegalese flag the moment the final whistle sounded.
Wilders does not operate in a vacuum, and the choreography of his provocations admits no variation. Every occasion of Moroccan visibility, every expression of Muslim devotion in public space, triggers the same performative desecration from a man who has built a career on civilizational arson.
His obscenity is symptomatic of a wider continental pathology. Across Europe, a resurgent far-right apparatus has turned anti-Muslim hostility into its most bankable electoral currency. From France’s Rassemblement National to Italy’s Lega, from the AfD in Germany to Vox in Spain, the demonization and vilification of Muslim communities has been industrialized into a transnational political project.
What distinguishes Wilders is the sheer vulgarity of his interventions, the willingness to strip away even the rhetorical pretense that other nativist operators still maintain. Where others traffic in policy euphemisms and legislative dog whistles, Wilders opts for the blunt instrument of public profanity directed at the sacred. His post was not a political statement. It was an act of deliberate sacrilege designed to maximize humiliation.
That Wilders suffered a sharp electoral rebuke in the October 2025 Dutch elections, where his PVV hemorrhaged seats from 37 to 26, offers scant consolation. He remains a sitting member of parliament. He still commands a platform of millions. His post was not the raving of a fringe provocateur. It was the deliberate output of a convicted discriminator whose anti-Muslim obsession constitutes the single organizing principle of his political existence.
Morocco opened their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaign with a creditable 1-1 draw against five-time champions Brazil at MetLife Stadium on Saturday. Ismael Saibari lobbed Alisson to give the Atlas Lions the lead in the 21st minute before Vinicius Junior equalized with a spectacular effort in the 32nd.
The result, watched by 80,663 spectators, reaffirmed Morocco’s standing among football’s elite. Yet the occasion was marred by an act of raw civilizational contempt that no scoreline can eclipse.
Read also: The Netherlands Owes Thousands of Moroccan Families More Than Money
