“Rabat”… the capital of “football shame” in the African continent?!

Political and sporting isolation is growing among fans inside and outside the continent.

In Africa today, there is no voice that speaks louder than sports corruption in reality and sites, and all fingers are pointing towards Rabat as the capital of football shame in the African continent..

Starting with stealing the organization of the African Cup, then giving up its organization in 2019, putting the institution in embarrassment, to the Cannes 2025 scandal, in which the final turned into the laughing stock of the world due to arbitration decisions that were like the drop that overflowed the cup of shame that marked this tournament..

But as if all that was not enough, the most absurd scene came and a major continental final was reduced to a towel.

The Senegal goalkeeper’s towel, a simple piece of cloth that exposed the confusion of the brothers in Al-Marouk and the emptiness of tools and ignorance that resides in the majority of minds there, and turned the African Cup final into a strange struggle over the goalkeeper’s towel on the sides of the green rectangle and sometimes inside it…!

In a shocking picture, and you may not accept seeing it even in inter-vital tournaments, let alone in an official tournament, any tournament, and any date in it?!

This was not a marginal detail or a funny image as a “large” international media organization wanted to market to the public, but rather a symbolic scene of a towel defeating an elected team and its fans, becoming the subject of ridicule and ridicule from the entire world?

Something strange and indescribable🤔🤔🤔🤔
I remembered the towel 🧢🐸 pic.twitter.com/s5u64R0Ehw

– 🅛🅐🅜🅐 💛💙🅐🅛🅢🅗🅜🅡🅘 (@LAMoSH_19955) January 19, 2026

Losing is part of the game, but defeat is the most dangerous today after it overturned many calculations that were based on a guaranteed title, and disrupted plans that were intended to pass through the coronation, and then they fell into the water… or rather, into a towel.

Al-Marouk does not face public discontent or sports criticism, but rather he faces growing sports isolation among fans inside the continent and growing doubts about everything surrounding his participation and organizations in it.

Memory is full of scandals that are not easily erased, especially when they are repeated, and when their owners insist on denying them instead of repenting from them.

After all the events that accompanied the final, the talk was no longer just about football, but rather about an open play in which Al-Makhzen tried to use sports as a political front, which ended in a cartoon scene entitled: towel..!

✍ Written by: journalist Muhammad Farqani