HIBAPRESS – Sports
The post by the Algerian commentator Hafid Al-Darraji about the performance of the Gabonese referee "Etchou" in the African Cup of Nations semi-final between Egypt and Senegal reopened the door to interpretation and controversy, after many followers went to that its content is not only questioning the referee's integrity, but carries a clear implication of trying to facilitate the task of the Moroccan national team in the event of reaching the final.
Al-Darraji's talk about "depriving three players from the final" through early warnings, and the endeavor to "get the two teams to extra time" in order to exhaust them physically, was understood as an indirect accusation of the existence of a refereeing scenario aimed at giving an advantage to the third party expected in the final, i.e. the Moroccan national team, by facing a weakened and exhausted opponent.
Followers believe that this argument goes beyond the usual refereeing criticism, to get close to hinting at the existence of guidance or a pre-determined intention to serve a specific team, which is a serious infringement of the principle of equal opportunities, and the integrity of the continental competition, especially in the absence of any evidence or decisive refereeing positions that prove this claim.
In contrast, analysts believe that arbitration is not measured by hypothetical results, nor by what may happen in a final match that has not yet been played, stressing that warnings or resorting to extra time remain possibilities related to the course of the match and the behavior of the players, not the service of another team.
This issue reveals once again the sensitivity of sports media discourse in the region, when arbitration is used as a tool to fuel conspiracy narratives or settle football accounts, instead of focusing on technical analysis and field facts.
Between those who see in Al-Darraji's post a personal opinion that carries a political-sports reading of events, and those who consider it an unjustified questioning of the referee's integrity and an attempt to involve the Moroccan national team in a dispute that has nothing to do with it, it remains certain that such hints are detrimental to the image of African football, and transform sports competition from a conflict above the green rectangle to interpretative battles outside the stadium.
