Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Mohammedia’s Al Bachir indoor arena hosted, for the first time, the inaugural edition of Empire Fight Morocco, an international kickboxing league that pitted the country’s national champions against opponents from across Europe. By the end of the night, the hosts had claimed most of the bouts on the card.
In the 69kg category, Omar Sellami, the event’s founder, beat Italy’s Gian Del Vecchio on points. At 65kg, Oussama Zaïm knocked out fellow Moroccan Ilyas Krafi in an all-domestic matchup, while Zakaria Nadir stopped Dutch fighter Noufal Lahfa by KO in the 63.5kg division. Hakim Ait Hamma defeated Spain’s Rifouane Sevilano at 67kg, and Hicham Ben Boukhriss got past Spain’s Del Prado on points at 65kg.
Not every bout went Morocco’s way. At heavyweight, Spain’s Abdelkrim El Omrani knocked out Abderrahmane Rachdi, and France’s Baptiste Kvazi beat Hamza El Haïmer on points at 72.5kg. Two fights, involving Nabil Ben Bouhou and Maïmoun Jazouli at 86kg, and Badr Haloui against Spain’s Mohamed Chab Didi at 71kg, ended in draws.
Beyond the scorecards, the event marks what the Royal Federation of Kickboxing has been pushing forward for a while: to give Moroccan fighters regular international-standard competition without having to leave the country.
Federation president Khalid Kandili described the tournament as a step toward strengthening kickboxing’s profile both nationally and internationally, and said he hopes it becomes an annual fixture rather than a one-off.
That ambition is tied closely to Sellami himself. The French-Moroccan boxer, who has spent much of his career based in Montbéliard and later Nancy, built a résumé that includes a WBC European title and a K1 world championship alongside training partner Mounir Settoul.
He has increasingly turned his attention toward developing combat sports back home, partnering with fellow professionals Ayoub El Khaider and Hakim Aït Hamma to put together the kind of events Morocco’s fight scene has historically lacked. Empire Fight Morocco, staged with federation backing, is the first concrete result of that push.
The inaugural card ran 20 fights in total and drew roughly 40 fighters from Morocco, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and France across men’s and women’s divisions in Muay Thai and K1.
The timing matters too. Morocco’s kickboxing federation has spent the past several months under scrutiny of its own: Kandili asked the Moroccan Court of Accounts to open an audit into the federation’s financial management under the previous leadership, a request the court agreed to take up in May.
Saturday’s event, and the international profile it is meant to build, arrives as the federation is trying to demonstrate it can deliver results on the sporting side while the institutional cleanup plays out.
