In 2016, around thirty cooperation agreements were signed with African countries poor in sports infrastructure, under which Moroccan facilities were made available to elite athletes from those countries at symbolic prices
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In an attempt to reverse a political trend that was unfavorable to it on the African stage, particularly on the issue of Western Sahara, the Moroccan regime chose a strategy of corruptive infiltration. This strategy has been applied for about a decade in sports, diplomacy, and business, but it is beginning to show its limits.
How can one absolutely rally someone, or a group, to one’s cause? Ideally, by convincing them. Failing that, by corrupting them. This is what the regime of the Kingdom of Morocco came to believe about ten years ago, which led it to deploy on two promising fronts, with the underlying objective of promoting the thesis of the “Moroccan-ness of Western Sahara,” in disregard of international legality.
The first front is diplomatic, marked by its accession in January 2017 to the African Union (AU), an organization it had left in 1984 in protest against the admission of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Morocco had understood that it would be better to defend its thesis from within rather than outside the AU. As expected, Morocco’s accession to the AU marked the beginning of a process of covert activities—agitation, manoeuvring, bribery, and corruption—aimed at trying to influence the AU’s position on the Western Sahara issue and to reverse a trend that was largely favorable to the SADR’s claim to self-determination.
Between promises of investment, tourist stays—all expenses paid by Morocco—and more if affinities allowed, the insidious demonization of Algeria among certain gullible leaders, and far-fetched projects such as the offshore gas pipeline between Nigeria and Morocco and land access to the Atlantic for Sahel countries, everything was attempted, with billions of hard cash spent. For what gain? None. In 2016, in the accession letter addressed to the AU General Assembly, the Moroccan sovereign said he was “confident in the wisdom of the AU to restore legality and correct past errors,” which meant, in other words, excluding the SADR. During that same General Assembly, 26 African countries had tried to pave the way by committing, through a motion, to “act toward the imminent suspension of the SADR from AU activities.” Ten years later, in 2026, the AU’s position on the Saharan issue has not changed, and the SADR is still a member. Diplomacy has come to nothing.
The other front on which the Moroccan regime sought to rely to serve its expansionist ambitions is sport. The extraordinary popular enthusiasm that surrounded Algeria’s participation in two successive final phases of the Football World Cup in 2010 and 2014, and the enormous goodwill observed across Africa, particularly convinced it of the advantage it could derive from sporting competitions, especially football. Thus, in 2016, around thirty cooperation agreements were signed with African countries poor in sports infrastructure, under which Moroccan facilities were made available to elite athletes from those countries at symbolic prices. As a result, national teams in various sports have found refuge in Morocco to prepare for international competitions, not without receiving recommendations to praise the country’s image. For certain so-called minor sports, the facilities offered are located in the occupied cities of Dakhla and Laâyoune, a way of placing the countries that send their athletes there before a fait accompli.
In addition to making sports infrastructure available, the Moroccan regime ensured that it obtained the hosting of numerous continental competitions, not only to include the occupied cities among host cities, but also to display the imaginary map of Morocco that includes Western Sahara. In short, this was more about politics than sport. African confederations of minor sports fell into the trap by participating in such competitions, but those of major sports, such as football and handball, did not cross the line thanks, among other things, to the vigilance of Algerian sports authorities. In football, they brought the case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne and obtained the banning of geographical maps from sports equipment; and in handball, they threatened to boycott the African Nations Championship scheduled for January 2022 in Morocco if the city of Laâyoune were maintained as a host city. This pushed the African Handball Confederation (CAHB) to postpone the competition and, a few months later, in view of Algeria’s intransigence, to withdraw the hosting rights from Morocco and award them to Egypt.
Despite the Moroccan regime’s strategy of using sport and diplomacy in Africa for expansionist purposes, the expected dividends have not materialized. Worse still, in addition to alienating many African countries, it has managed the feat of drawing the wrath of its own people, since, driven by a nauseating Machiavellianism, it dared to normalize its relations with the Zionist entity in exchange for support and international lobbying, in disregard of the deeply anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian sentiments of the Moroccan people. This is the art of spending billions only to end up losing on all fronts.
