HIBAPRESS – Sports
Yesterday evening, international referee Bouchra Karboubi announced her retirement from the world of officiating through a post on her official social media page, before a copy of the retirement letter she sent to the head of the university was circulated.
The retirement letter, through which Bouchra Karboubi tried to shed light on what she described as "harassment" she was subjected to, only revealed part of the truth according to a number of refereeing sources, as the reality seems far from the image that some parties tried to promote regarding the issue of retirement.
According to informed sources within the refereeing sector, the retirement came as a result of accumulations that can be described as "purely professional," the last of which was when Karboubi's name was not included in the final list of referees for the upcoming African Cup of Nations.
These same sources add that this exclusion from the CAN referees' list was not a decision related to the refereeing directorate in Morocco, but rather a reflection of precise technical and technical assessments made by the CAF refereeing committee, which takes into account refereeing performance, physical preparation, and the ability to manage matches throughout the year preceding any continental football event.
These standards are known within every refereeing system, as the performance of Bouchra Karboubi internationally and locally declined noticeably during the months preceding the announcement of the CAN referees' list, which was noticed by most of those interested in and following the refereeing field, and Karboubi accumulated in her leadership of a number of matches recently in the Moroccan league a number of mistakes that our sources described as "egregious," some of which affected the result of the matches she led.
The performance of referee Bouchra was the subject of close follow-up by the CAF refereeing committee, where the committee did not seem convinced by the level that the Moroccan referee had reached, which led to her name being dropped from the list that was announced only minutes before Bouchra announced her retirement from the fields.
What happened, according to some close people, was a great shock to Karboubi's ambition, who was hoping to participate in a huge event hosted by our country, especially since she participated in similar events in previous years when her performance was satisfactory to CAF refereeing officials.
A refereeing source confirmed that the decision to exclude Karboubi, which was taken by CAF, is expected and normal in such continental competitions, where there is no place for privileges or favoritism, but rather the performance is the decisive factor in making the decision to participate or exclude, and a number of prominent refereeing names were also excluded and their names were dropped from the list in view of the decline in their performance in recent weeks, especially since the CAF refereeing committee works on the principle of "the truth for the ready and not for the experienced."
In parallel with that, some news leaked from the last referees' camp organized by the refereeing directorate at the Mohammed VI complex, which Bouchra Karboubi attended, where the data indicates that the international referee in women's football did not appreciate the decision of the supervisors of the physical test who issued a warning to her after her repeated late arrival at the finish line.
The same data indicated that referee Bouchra rebelled against the physical trainers affiliated with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, who were carrying out the task of supervising and monitoring the extent to which the referees participating in the physical test respected the established standards, where she began to shout among the referees, which prompted the director Ridouane Tahraoui, according to statements from referees who witnessed the incident, to intervene and try to calm the situation in a friendly manner to complete the tests of the rest of the referees in a normal atmosphere to ensure their focus, but things developed, which prompted the directorate to hold an emergency meeting to take the necessary action against the referee.
It should be noted that the announcement of Bouchra Karboubi's retirement and its coinciding with the announcement of the CAN referees' list raises many questions about the real motives for the decision, which makes the attempt of some media and public parties to attribute the retirement decision to Ridouane Tahraoui's directorate nothing more than an attempt to dispose of a deep personal grudge for some or narrow calculations with the directorate, especially when Ridouane Tahraoui was a practicing referee.
