Moroccan national coach calls for forgiveness after racist incident at hotel
NOS Football–
Walid Regragui, the national coach of the Moroccan team, has responded to the outcry on social media following an incident at the Madrid hotel where his selection was staying. An employee of the hotel posted racist texts on his Instagram page.
The Moroccan team is in Spain for a practice match against Peru, to be played Wednesday night. The hotel employee wrote racist texts to a photo of Moroccan players eating.
“We serve them Ramadan shit” and “fucking Moors,” among other things, it read. In Spain, “Moor” is a derogatory term for Muslims from North Africa.
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NOS
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The posts leaked out and caused great anger among Moroccan soccer fans. To Spanish media, the manager of the hotel went through the dust. According to him, those involved have already been fired and “handed over to the police to answer for their crimes.” One of them has been arrested, according to Spanish newspaper AS.
Regragui asks for forgiveness
At a press conference, Regragui, Morocco’s national coach, was asked about the issue. He called on people to forgive whoever posted the messages. “He is a boy of nineteen or twenty, we don’t dwell on that. In our religion we are taught forgiveness and we forgive him,” Regragui said.
“The best example in this period of Ramadan is to forgive him and he will understand that what he thinks about Muslims is not reality. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
The employee already went on Instagram at length, also fearing for his job.
