Fez – The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) Ethics Committee summoned today the President of the football club Youssoufia Berrechid Noureddine El Baidi for a meeting on May 26 after he was caught admitting to having fixed a match in the Moroccan League.
Following his club’s defeat against AS FAR on Friday, El Baidi was caught on camera telling AS FAR attacking midfielder Abdelilah Amimi that he had influenced the results of a previous match in Botola 2, the Moroccan league’s second division.
“I fixed a match for you in the second division, Amimi,” a furious Youssoufia Berrechid president is heard saying in the circulated footage.
The president’s video went viral once it was posted on social media platforms, dividing the public opinion about the match-fixing scandals inside the corridors of Moroccan football.
Many commenters argued that match-fixing claims have become a widely circulated phenomenon in the Moroccan football league to the extent that it is on the way to becoming a “normalized” habit.
“This has become a normal thing nowadays. Why do you all seem surprised,” one commenter said.
Meanwhile, others maintain that match-fixing allegations are one of the least talked about issues within the FRMF walls, urging Moroccan football’s governing body to open an investigation into the scandalous case.
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FRMF immediately reacted to the widely circulated video, calling the Moroccan club’s president to appear before its Ethics Committee in the coming days.
Under the Committee’s regulations, Youssoufia Berrechid’s president could face a lifetime ban if found guilty.
Not the first time
The recent statement by El Baidi brought back memories of past match-fixing claims that shook off the Moroccan football scene.
In 2017, the Moroccan federation handed out a lifetime ban to two officials of Moroccan football clubs after being caught red-handed manipulating the results of a match in the Amateur National Championship. The FRMF also suspended the players of both teams for one season.
In 2016, the then President of RAJA AC Mohamed Boudrika lashed out at several Moroccan clubs, mainly Wydad AC, allegedly accusing them of influencing the Moroccan league’s match results to serve their own ends.
But the Casablanca-based club RAJA AC was also linked with match-fixing claims in the 2012-2013 Botola Pro season as the former Raja center-defender Elamin Erbate had admitted to having a hand in games betting during that season.
The ceaseless mud-slinging between Moroccan clubs over match-fixing claims is becoming a growing trend by the day, yet the Moroccan federation appears to give little to no attention to the issue.
Amid widespread agitation for the need of eradicating match-fixing in Morocco, it remains to be seen what the upcoming meeting between the FRMF Ethics Committee and Youssoufia Berrechid’s president will bring to the long-standing discussion about corruption in Moroccan football.
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