The Geopolitics of Football: Exploring Issues, Challenges, & Risks for Moroccan National Security

Introduction

By observing Moroccan sports news, especially football, we notice that this sport gradually occupies an important place in Moroccan popular passion and consciousness, reshaping known concepts and realities related to the principles of popular identity and national collective consciousness. Sports in Morocco, as on a global level, during the period of the struggle against colonialism, were known as a means of political demonstration and demanding independence and resistance against the colonisers. Thanks to this luminous contribution, after the colonial period, sports in general, and Moroccan football in particular, entered the structure of nation-building and development thanks to its real contribution, its concrete importance, and its roles in strengthening internal social unity, including diplomatic presence and the country’s cultural image in foreign and global political consciousness. 

In this context, Ribeiro (2021) joins the idea by confirming that sports, and specifically football, are no longer just a simple game, and the lines of separation between politics, ideology, and this game are gradually being removed, with football playing a new role in politics, culture, diplomacy, power, security, etc.  The fact that football has ceased to be an independent sport and a game of satisfaction has helped it gradually expand into unforeseen dimensions and produce unknown political impacts.  According to Waele (2018), this should encourage Morocco to deepen its awareness of this sport as it has become an ideologised activity tied to political issues, social stability challenges, and also national security.

To provide a general overview of our idea confirming that sports in general and football specifically are the subject of political studies, we will start from the general idea of our research, which states that football is currently a powerful means and tool for shaping political life, massively used by different political systems at the international level. The power game requires the presence of a new lever to strengthen the legitimacy of the actions and strategies taken by States and a new means to fortify solidarity and nationalism within modern societies. According to Campos (2023), sports competitions such as the World Cup in football and also continental competitions organised by regional football unions, constitute activities that states can benefit from by organising them not only to enjoy the benefits of development.

But, also to strengthen the national spirit, consolidate national unity, fortify social stability, and reinforce political legitimacy and national security, etc. According to the same author, the fact that football produces transnational relationships and interactions and modifies social relations, including the psychological behaviours of humans, constitutes an advantage for leaders to exploit these potentials in order to create new relationships or modify existing interactions for the achievement of non-sporting objectives and ambitions, which already include politics and manipulation. According to Al Arian (2022), Arab states vigorously use football to manipulate local public opinion and internal political dynamics, including for reasons of soft power and external and diplomatic influence. According to this description, Moroccan football will become a crossroads of multiple interactions, and can serve several objectives beyond the sporting dimension, including geopolitical, security, and diplomatic.

According to this context, we will then believe that football, although it offers opportunities, the use of this sport for the achievement of geopolitical and diplomatic objectives, can produce undesirable reflections as results and consequences of politicised sport. Morocco, like many other states, politicises this game to take advantage of the potential that this operation offers in the fields of influence, diplomacy, and culture. However, we have noticed that the negative reflections were very real and quickly manifest on the field, especially during competitions organised by the African Football Confederation, and how they contributed – through the manipulation of supporters – to poisoning the political and diplomatic environment between Morocco and some other member countries of the competition. We will believe, based on the analysis of these competitions, that these activities, in terms of interpretation, fall within the known frameworks of this sports manipulation game, contributing to increased rivalries and fuelling social unrest, and in some cases, the suspension of diplomatic and political relations between competing states, as was the case between Algeria and Egypt (Ribeiro, 2021). In this regard, we believe that this type of situation increases the pressure on states already in a state of political overlap or diplomatic stagnation, especially in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Indeed, the impacts of this game cannot be limited solely to external impacts, as the consequences can extend to poisoning internal political life by complicating security planning and weakening internal social solidarity and stability.

II. The General Historical Framework

Morocco experienced football under the protectorate regime, where French colonialism introduced football into Moroccan society as a popular sport, similar to other Western and colonial values integrated into colonised societies during the Western imperialist period. Football, like several other sports, initially served the strategies of the colonisers during this period, while it was also adopted and used as an instrument of refusal and rejection of French colonial rule over the Moroccan people. According to Bous and Wildangel (2022), football, as a game of the colonisers during this period, reflected the general political, ideological, and social environment of the country, where the discriminations between colonizer/nationalist, around the causes related to societies of that time, found their extensions on the football fields, and each mobilised the spectacle around its pro or anti-colonialist principles and demands.

Dorsey (2017) confirms these uses of football in the political domain, extending the debate beyond the colonial period, stating that this sport continued to be used during this time as a constitutive element of national identity and unity after it had been used to manifest the rejection of colonisers and support for national resistance. These uses, according to the same author, were almost identical and similar and were strongly utilised by the countries of North Africa as well as the Middle East for the construction of the nation-state and national spirit. Sports competitions in these countries become an opportunity to demonstrate the national spirit of the nations on these occasions and a testament to how the spectacle defends its national symbols. For example, the World Cup, including competitions organised at the continental level, has become an opportunity for identity and social expression related to certain causes and principles.

These competitions are no longer mere occasions for clear sports competition, where identity manifestations, political radicalism, social claims, political demonstrations, etc., find their appearance. The occasion of the 2022 World Cup, according to Ncube (2024), has revived these debates around the roles of football teams in activating national and identity spirit and how they can be used to achieve other objectives of a nature different from sports.

In the Moroccan case, there are numerous examples demonstrating that the Moroccan authorities have widely used football to strengthen national unity and spirit. The use of football to achieve political objectives in Morocco, according to Boum (2013), is largely tolerated by the State and official authorities – as is the case in several other continental and global examples – to strengthen political stability and reduce social tensions by stimulating nationalist sentiments and identity emotions, and also to reinforce the legitimacy of the authorities’ political actions. According to this author, the Moroccan authorities have exerted almost complete influence over the most well-known Moroccan football teams, instrumentalizing competitions and the success of the teams for political mobilisation and ensuring the loyalty of the spectators.

In this context of use by the Moroccan authorities, Waele (2018) asserts that the use aligns with modern practices of soft power, where states use football, as well as other sports, to project power in their surroundings through various modalities and forms. That is why Moroccan authorities use football to strengthen national unity, endorse social and political stability, and enhance Morocco’s presence in its continental and global geographical surroundings.

However, the fact that football has become politicised and shifted its position towards achieving goals other than its nature increases the likelihood that these new uses will consequently turn against its users. The fact that football and sports in general have become a political game increases the likelihood that these games will in turn produce undesirable negative effects and consequently affect security, stability, politics, and even diplomatic relations in certain cases. The phenomenon of ultras and supporters mobilised in Morocco, for example, especially those who reflect ideological or political backgrounds, asserts that we are dealing with a double-edged sword when the State tries to control the game in its favour; these movements overturn the game by acting as movements of protest and political demands, even against the strategic orientations of the State in areas far from sports and football.

As we discussed, the fact that football and sports in general have become a domain where politics extends its games and stakes sometimes diverges the diplomatic ambitions of the country with the demands of the ultras and sports spectacles. In some cases, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, etc., found themselves in moments of diplomatic crisis and political rifts because of football, due to their commitments to their sports institutions and their interpretations of sport and football specifically, by mobilising and politicising sport in general and football in particular. According to Boum (2013), sporting events between countries in the region manifest as occasions that reflect the extension of geopolitical and strategic rivalries, with these competitions gradually and clearly leaving their ordinary positions as sports crossroads to become summits of open geopolitical competitions. In other aspects, this type of competition, especially of the global kind, places Morocco in scenarios that generate multiple identity questions and challenge its connections with its African and Arab surroundings.

In this part of the debate, Ncube (2024) noted that during the 2022 World Cup competitions held in Qatar, Morocco’s success in these competitions was accompanied by controversial political debates and raised numerous questions about their identity relations with the Middle East and North Africa, as well as their relations with the African continent. In the same vein, Campos (2023) believes that football, by transcending the realm of the game, currently finds itself in a sensitive situation where decision-makers can use it in the same way, either to gain political advantage over an opponent or rival, or to strengthen the bonds of rapprochement and connection between the peoples of the region.

III. Framing the Issues for Morocco

Another issue that can be pointed out and which may contribute to influencing the behaviour of football and transporting it towards politics and other paths and fields far from sport in general. The fact that Morocco adopts an open policy to encourage investments in this area increases divisions and discrimination among Moroccan football clubs, fostering a sense of inferiority and inequality among supporters regarding the resources and funding provided by the state for these clubs. According to Rachidi and Abderrahim (2024), the gaps in these policies and programs, which reflect the unequal treatment of clubs, contribute to encouraging the emergence of ultra-movements manifesting demands or supporting a positioning of their clubs against any policy in the sports field or elsewhere.

In this section of the presentations, Rohle and Breuer (2016) estimate that the implementation of this policy and the liberalisation of the football sector, although it offers more opportunities for the structure of the sector, especially the development of sports infrastructures and the increase in salary rates, etc., will reinforce the division between clubs regarding their ability to attract foreign investments, and strengthen the primacy of some teams to the detriment of others. This situation increases doubt among spectators and ultras, consequently raising the doubts of the population regarding the policies adopted to develop this field, including its elites who manage it (Thani and Heenan, 2017).

The policy of opening Moroccan teams to foreign capital complicates the situation for Morocco even more if the situation is not strictly regulated by laws organising the investment operation and the balance of capital flows towards Moroccan clubs. More than these challenges, Morocco should take into consideration the specific issues of football, especially those related to local clubs and teams. Although the management of national identity and spirit is inacceptable and reasonable conditions, the management of challenges of the same nature at the local level still risks being far from the expected ambitions.

Alongside the influence of investors in Moroccan clubs and teams, the interference of politics disrupting the governance of this field is also present. To demonstrate the existence of this idea, the examples we can introduce are numerous in Morocco and in most countries in the African region and the Middle East. But in order to focus on our research theme, we introduce what Shehata (2025) says, confirming that this presence in the Moroccan example is also evident when the Moroccan state exerted its influence on Moroccan teams by favouring some over others. According to the same author, state support for certain clubs was discriminatory by providing the necessary funding, including institutional and administrative support.

According to Lyazghi and Rharib (2018), the Moroccan state agency was well aware of the benefits arising from the support of football clubs and teams and the profile it could gain from this support in strengthening national stability and unity. That is why we have long witnessed in Morocco how the State tries to control and manage this domain in order to derive the maximum benefits from it, especially in human development. However, the fact that these practices are widely used in these countries to harness the potential of football to promote a political positioning or a social orientation encourages teams, clubs, and their ultras to base their refusals and demands on this political interventionism and imbalance, not only against the sports policy of such a state, whose demands can target sectors far from sports and football (Plessis and Koen, 2024).

The examples we discuss explain how political and financial intrusions and interventionism in the field of football, which are almost tolerated in some cases at the continental level, encourage the emergence of other refuted practices such as corruption and direct political intrusion, hindering the institutionalisation, organization, and regulation of the field, thereby undermining its new role as a locomotive for human development (Grant, 2021). Such practices, in the absence of vigilance and deep awareness of the new challenges in global football, can undermine Morocco’s efforts to establish a Moroccan system of transparency and trust in the field of football and sports in general, based on the development of sports, attracting investments, and the institutionalisation, organization, and regulation of the field in general, to the detriment of an environment of distrust and cooperation.

Consequently, poor governance in the field of football leads to repercussions and the emergence of security-related challenges. The mobilisation within the ultras and club supporters for political or ideological reasons contributes to the rise of events disrupting national security and destabilising social stability, with numerous examples at the global level. The ultras are therefore not merely groups of protest and demands against the authorities and the official policies of the States, as these groups also compete with each other based on myths or stories, creating an atmosphere of crowd and instability due to the high probabilities of direct confrontations during matches and football events (Ribeiro, 2021).

These groups in the Moroccan case have contributed to tragic events and incited the organization of crowds and demonstrations, including direct confrontations within or outside stadiums with rivals, sharing banners that provoke rival spectacles, transforming the sports space from an area of patience to an environment of danger. These events have led to tragic outcomes, with victims and multiple arrests, reflecting the extent to which these groups influence the minds of supporters, especially young people and, in most cases, minors (Prendecki, 2022). According to Junaedi (2023), this kind of situation requires deep reflections against violent ultras, by deterring perpetrators through the reinforcement of control measures, direct penalties, and the effective use of modern surveillance instruments during the organization of these events. Basson and Senaux (2023) recommend that as the risks increase and become more complex, national security strategies should be expanded to incorporate the multiple and different aspects threatening the organization of sporting events with global implications.

In this regard, Morocco should take these issues into consideration to develop its vision and strategy not only to deter these actions. However, the implementation of a comprehensive, open, agile, trustworthy, and multisectoral prevention strategy, etc., is currently a necessity, even an obligation.

V. Challenges of the Game

The economy of sports in Morocco and the adoption of this field as a lever for economic development present the latter with the same challenges hindering the Moroccan economy and the human development strategy. The acceleration that the Moroccan economy has experienced in recent years, massive opening, inflation, high unemployment rates, unequal competition, macro and microeconomic imbalances, etc., will all impact the processes of establishing a national strategy for the development of the football and sports sector in general. Alongside internal challenges, continental challenges emerge in the form of competition and rivalries over limited resources in this field, such as sought-after talents, capital transfers, legal regulation, the fight against corruption, bureaucracy, etc., which also pose challenges to the processes of reform and development in this essential area of sustainable development.

Andreff (2010) adds, in addition to the challenges we have listed above, that the brain drain is the most negatively impactful challenge against national efforts in Africa generally, aiming at the development of the sports field in general and football specifically. Considered a brain drain, like the brain drain phenomenon, African clubs, including national competitions, suffer from these leaks of sporting talent, primarily preferring Europe due to salaries and associated privileges. The sports infrastructures in Europe encourage this immigration and prompt young talents to leave their home countries under the pressure of dreams, ambitions, and family needs.

Hodl (2010) then estimates that this local African sports economy generally constitutes only a satellite economy that is linked and complements the European sports and football economy, whose resources are all mobilised to serve the objectives of the dominant actors in this field, who are consequently, as in all fields, Europeans. The existing frameworks for player transfers and assets related to these transactions, purely capitalist, are still under ethical discussion and in a state of doubt regarding their ability to ensure fairness in these transactions and the legality of their activities (Andreff, 2010). In this regard, the field of Moroccan sports and football is faced with multiple challenges that vary and are distinguished by political, economic, security, strategic, etc. nature, whose implementation of a global emergence strategy is a complex mission that should take into account several aspects and unforeseen challenges.

To endorse the argument about the existence of multiple challenges facing Moroccan football, we revisit the challenge of the politicisation of competitions, where football teams are forced to win so that politicians can exploit the situation to their advantage and serve their objectives and interests far from football and sports. Mehler and Njoya (2006) confirm this idea by providing testimonies about African countries and how national football teams have been prepared to win continental competitions and how these victories have been exploited in favour of politicians and leaders and governments to strengthen national unity, security, and stability. According to the same authors, these actions can indeed improve the image of African countries on the international stage – including the opportunity for Morocco – as part of the soft power of such countries aiming to enhance their overall image by leveraging the mobilisation potential of sports and football.

However, the concentration of efforts solely on improving the country’s image and positioning in international competitions can, in this case, discourage efforts dedicated to the development of the internal sports sector in these countries and deprive regional and local clubs of the potential for development and the necessary funding to enhance their modest capabilities. Alongside this issue, the pressure from the massive integration of Moroccan football into continental and global turmoil, facing national capacities in the process of development and infrastructures on the path to modernisation. In addition to the above, the situation also burdens the efforts of the supervisory administration and the governance institutions attached to this field, which are already based on rigid operating systems despite massive modernisation efforts.

Inglott (2023) strengthens our analysis process by adding that the phenomenon of corruption in the sports field and football in Africa hinders Morocco’s path, which is trying to economically benefit from this domain by establishing legal standards and respecting regulations and order. African countries still live under the reign of corruption accusations and the manipulation of national teams for political and security reasons. This situation can complicate Morocco’s international integration in this field, as the institutional weakness and structural vulnerabilities of African countries still encourage the existence of unfounded practices from which sports, and football in particular, should be far removed. Transnational crime benefits from gaps in sports strategies, security vulnerabilities, and structural institutional weaknesses in Africa, creating security disruptions by directly attacking sporting events or through cyberattacks or informational means (Horta, 2023). In this aspect of crime, it can involve manipulating match results for betting gains, the intrusion of ultras, and inciting supporters to commit riots, making trust and ethics in this sport dubious and unfounded (Mravec, 2021).

A United Nations report (2024) discusses in the field of sports generally, the likelihood of intersection between criminal acts and the phenomenon of corruption, given that this field presents itself to criminals as a stable and profitable domain with less risk and control. So, in this environment of multiple interactions, Morocco is invited to consolidate its regulatory and institutional frameworks, its international cooperation frameworks, including strengthening the presence of its image by further developing forms of sharing and soft power, and finally endorsing its internal security and stability measures.

V. Risks and Security Repercussions

Ludvigusen (2028) states that crowds attached to sports activities in general and football specifically at the global level determine that the sports field has inevitably become a domain of national security.  Crowds in sports and football determine that stadiums have become arenas for mobilizing popular masses already angered by certain policies or decisions against their clubs or generally attached to daily life.  This potential for mobilization and manipulation transforms sports fields from spaces of team support and patience towards the game into spaces of political, cultural, ideological mobilization, etc., pushing spectator stands to become means of inciting social turbulence, political protest, demonstrations against security, and calls for the destruction and sabotage of property and infrastructure.  The same author confirms the idea by adding that sport has become a domain where politics is exercised and security is extended, with the risks of manipulation and use for strategic or geopolitical purposes always present.

The fact that stadiums host and mobilize spectators and club supporters increases the likelihood of psychological manipulation of the masses, directing them towards actions refuted by laws and customs with the sole objective of humiliating the general image of a country in the eyes of its rivals and deteriorating its trust and diplomatic positioning among its allies (Dorsey, 2016).  The author continues his argument by discussing the use of these events and crowds on the international stage to demonstrate that certain states do not have the capacity to secure such activities or ensure the safety of visitors to these events.  For more details, the crowds at these events are no longer merely activities of destabilization at a basic level, as the use of these events can transcend civil use towards a deeper manipulation for specific terrorist and ideological objectives, such as ruining a similar event to support a radical political or military activity outside the country. 

The protesting supporters demonstrate, in most of these activities, crowds that are aligned either against a policy or in support of a militant, military, or resistance figure. This indicates, according to Caruso and Domizion (2013), that crowds within stadiums are not activities isolated from the political, cultural, and ideological environment and the surrounding social context that influence them, guiding and pushing them to prolong rage and destruction in the absence of awareness, guidance, and supervision, towards sports goods and infrastructure.  The studies conducted by Cleland and Cashmore (2018) estimate that the proliferation of such activities in the sports field encourages massive security measures and the consolidation of surveillance and control means, including authoritarian measures, without the masses marking and manifesting their refusal against these measures, while they involuntarily engage in initiatives to support causes without the slightest awareness of the consequences and repercussions of their activities on their rights and freedoms. 

According to these authors, the masses gradually show their familiarity with coercive measures to neutralize crowds in the fields in order to stabilize the events in question.  Indeed, the ideas presented confirm that we are facing a new era where the sports arena, once a place for games of satisfaction and pleasure, has transformed into an environment where political cunning, security visions, psychological manipulation, and ideological mobilization of individuals and groups against their political powers and security institutions continue.

What the recent football events organized by Morocco at the continental and regional levels have shown us is that this kind of activity has gone beyond the aspect of pleasure and the simple game of sports competition. The impacts we have observed demonstrate that some well-influenced events were cases of political extortion and diplomatic and geopolitical manipulation against Morocco, aiming to humiliate the country before the international community, including achieving some strategic gains by encircling Morocco’s soft power at the continental level. 

As Causo and Domizion (2013) confirm in their studies related to our research theme, the field of sports in general and football in particular have become the arena where cunning and political manipulation play out, and a stage where relationships, visions, interactions, and multifaceted interconnections manifest, unfold, and interact.  Morocco has been a victim of this kind of manipulation in the African context, where rival regional states at the regional, continental, or even international levels in other fields far from sports have taken advantage of the organizational shortcomings of these activities to carry out waves of disinformation, incitements to protests, and the organization of crowds during events, discrediting Moroccan authorities in general and Moroccan sports and football institutions, as well as accusations of corruption and interventionism in the competencies of the African Football Confederation, etc. All of this confirms that the field of football has become a terrain for political manipulation and diplomatic pressure, and why not, to consolidate geopolitical preeminence.

Following the argumentation of Murray and Pigman (2013), and the observations we have gathered related to these occasions, we confirm that these events are also the field where diplomatic conflicts intensify, geopolitical rivalries between Morocco and its neighbors continue, strategic competition unfolds, national institutions weaken, social and political destabilization occurs, ideological and cultural manipulation of the masses, etc.  The efforts to limit the impacts and minimize the repercussions coming from this domain must be multidimensional, basing the effort particularly on the official side by strengthening cooperation with institutions and state bodies related to continental and international sports, including collaboration with civil society and interested private organizations, to contribute, using its communication potentials and networks of relationships, to fill organizational gaps, limit the effects of misinformation, encircle political calls to crowds and sabotage, and finally further enhance this target domain.

The commitments of States in high-revenue sports events—economic, financial, cultural, diplomatic, etc.—with the obligation to succeed in these activities, increase their exposure to multiple risks and the probability of exploiting vulnerabilities in an attempt to turn success into failure and, why not, into a situation of instability and insecurity. Ludvigsen’s (2018) security studies, related to sports, discuss the necessity of security beyond limits in large-scale events and their beneficiaries’ impact, where States will need to multiply vigilance and security during the organization by strengthening control and surveillance measures. According to the author, this will help the host state to broaden the scope of national security and ensure the operability of its related services towards new expertise and new areas, as well as the mastery of new security methods. Toohey and Taylor (2024) confirm that the level of media coverage and the global nature of these activities increase the exposure of host states to security threats and enhance the attractiveness for criminals and possibly terrorists aiming to infiltrate events to carry out illicit activities with multiple security objectives through various means and tools.

These authors continue to criticize the situation by stating that the field of organizing events such as the Olympic Games or the World Cup, as a new domain in states newly engaged in this type of event. Increases the likelihood that newly built infrastructures and recently engaged services, massively poured funds to ensure better organization, inexperienced institutions, etc., can all inversely contribute to what the supervising authorities initially want as objectives in the organization of colossal sporting activities. Cleland and Chasmore (2018) estimate that although we are faced with situations requiring massive security and the consolidation of control measures, including the multiplication of real-time surveillance instruments inside and outside stadiums, this makes the situation somewhat dichotomous and questions the legitimacy, particularly of massive surveillance and control justified by security fears.

The contradiction here, although real, arises when spectators and visitors can accept surveillance and control to some extent in order to ensure the stability and continuity of organized events, while the stifling and overwhelming of activities by surveillance and control practices raises several other questions and concerns, particularly regarding the legitimacy of these security practices at the expense of legal frameworks and fundamental freedoms. This ultimately means that organizing such activities requires a national strategy that extends beyond the realm of sports governance and takes into account all aspects that can be considered shortcomings and pretexts exploited by regional, continental, or international rivals to humiliate the host state and degrade its value and competencies in the eyes of the international community.

VI. Conclusion

To conclude this study, we can say that the field of sports in general and football in Morocco operate according to the rules established in the political game and intersect with several aspects identified as factors of manipulation and political and strategic use.  Identity, culture, security, politics, public opinion, etc., have all become domains where the politicization of football and the manipulation of the masses take place and extend to achieve goals far from football and far from sports in general. The fact that Moroccan sports are currently easily manipulated by politics is because they have been part of this domain since the colonial period, during which Moroccan football was used to support the effort against colonialism and to mobilize the masses against the policies and official orientations of the colonizers, which converged with the social and popular attitudes of the time. Thus, Moroccan football already constitutes a constitutive element of Moroccan identity and culture of resistance and mobilization to manifest or revolt, including a means to practice freedom of expression and social and political mobilization at the internal level. This reality, accompanied by structural vulnerabilities related to the field of football in Morocco and specifically political interference, has contributed to distorting the general and confident image of Moroccan sports, including its sensitive reputation attached to the security of Moroccan sporting events. Moreover, the fact that football is massively politicized both domestically and globally means that the games and plots of the internal and international political components in this field influence and impact the discussed domain and vice versa.  So, the practices that disfigure the image of national football are numerous and vary as internal and global stakes related to the field or far from external in nature.

We also add in this study that due to the aforementioned, Moroccan football is gradually being secured and policed in order to address the phenomena currently invading it, such as radicalization and the manipulation of the masses to transform football fields into spaces of confrontation and violence, and to carry out political and strategic plots through sporting events and popular masses on the football fields. This security, control, and massive surveillance of such events are the results of the fear of the geopolitical and strategic use of crowds during the organization of a similar large-scale event at the international level to achieve objectives other than sporting ones, humiliating the host state and casting doubt on the international community’s organizational capabilities and competencies.

To propose the recommendations, we deem necessary in our study in order to minimize the effects of such uses of football outside the sporting logic. We see that the fact that football and sports in general are internationalizing and globalizing brings the effects of this development and usage through influences, outside the logic of sports and towards new dimensions, diverting football towards a new era of political and security uses. The fact that these new uses impose several challenges and issues against national security and social stability.

This requires major reforms and the updating of sports governance structures and the regulatory institutional development of the field.  As a first step, Morocco should combat the visions that portray sports as a means and a political tool to achieve political and influence objectives, including supporting and strengthening the frameworks governing the administration of the field according to transparency rules, promoting the attractiveness of the field, and strengthening its openness to attract the investments and capital necessary to establish a strategic and sustainable planning of the field.  In terms of investments, Morocco should regulate the flow of foreign aid and financial investments intended for Moroccan clubs by strengthening control and audit mechanisms, avoiding the involvement of executive offices, especially local ones, in corruption and financial crime cases, etc., which negatively impact the integrity and reputation of the teams and foster their dependence on these new financial sources, and which can, conversely, deepen involvement in highly politicized matters far from sports, blocking the normal management and continuity of the clubs.

To minimize the negative impacts, Morocco should also develop national sports and football infrastructure specifically by enhancing the offer through the promotion of local talents and helping them develop their potential within a confident and stable national framework, including national expertise in combating corruption and match-fixing. And finally, the security governance related to sports and football events should be modernized by integrating modern surveillance and control technologies according to the standards provided by law, including strengthening collaboration between security and intelligence services to well organize these events while maintaining the integrity of spectators and players, as well as the security of infrastructures, away from probable disruptions, and keeping sports and football in their native and original contexts.

To avoid future implications, we have tried to delineate the challenges and stakes against Moroccan football and sports in general, so that decision-makers in this field can master the maximization of the profile and the perfect use of risk and challenge analysis in order to avoid manipulable disruptions and serve politics and destabilization. We have seen that Moroccan sports and football have helped improve Morocco’s overall image within the international community by strengthening its diplomatic position and offering more internal economic opportunities, as well as contributing to attracting foreign investments. We have also observed how these areas can negatively impact national security and politicize the entire field. The new situation in which sports occupy within the strategic and geopolitical structure of states, including Morocco, due to the probabilities of manipulation, stipulates the massive securing of fields and spaces where competitions and major events take place.  And it also determines that this field is strategically important for the Moroccan State and vital for its primary security concerns.

This importance also imposes new challenges, particularly related to the massive security of sports spaces, which forces practitioners in this field to go further in the production of national sports governance strategies by opening visions and perspectives towards new areas of social sciences. In short, by mastering the dichotomy of sports and football, Morocco can certainly transform this field from an environment where various challenges proliferate into a sector that reaps opportunities and benefits.

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