After the Olympic debacle, let’s think!

HIBAPRESS-RABAT- According to the opinion

After the catastrophic results of Moroccan sports disciplines at the Paris Olympics, it is time for explanations. What made these Games a continuation of disastrous results? If there were no El Bekkali and the footballers, what would this trip look like, where no less than 8 billion centimes were squandered?

This shameful situation has exposed all those responsible for Moroccan sport, from the supervisory department, which endorsed this disaster, to the leaders of sports federations, directly responsible for the shipwreck. Regarding these leaders, the Royal Letter addressed by His Majesty to the Skhirat Assizes was, as could not be more, edifying: “Among the most glaring manifestations of these dysfunctions in the sports landscape, we observe that sport is getting bogged down in improvisation and decay, and that it is subjected by intruders to shameful exploitation for basely mercantilist or selfish reasons. Only leaders blessed by God have escaped this unfortunate trend.”

Her Majesty has even described the dysfunction as stagnation and decay, calling some officials “interlopers” who shamefully exploit their positions for “basely mercantilist or selfish” reasons. Because yes, it is time to recognize that for some, who have been in office for almost 16 years, this is the time or never to show that the interest of the nation comes before all else.

And beyond the controversies and media lynchings against the presidents of certain federations, which have resulted from the meager results of Moroccan athletes in various disciplines, we should question the honorary dimension of these positions of presidents occupied for decades by the same people. Do they really still want them? Hasn’t the time come to move from this honorary dimension to a dimension based on competence and performance? Isn’t it also time to get out of this Moroccan tropism for football and broaden state attention to other sports disciplines which should also be equipped with structures of sporting excellence like the Mohammed VI Academy for football or the French INSEP? These are undoubtedly the real questions to ask.