Estifi dismantles the "propaganda" against Morocco and calls for building a proactive national media

Jamal Estifi, a journalist and sports analyst, provided an accurate anatomical reading of the artificial controversy that accompanies Moroccan football achievements, highlighting the crisis in the Morocco-Senegal match, and the media propaganda campaigns targeting the Kingdom.

Estifi, who was a guest on the “Niqash Hespress” program, deconstructed the opposing narratives, calling for building a proactive national media strategy that is not limited to reactions, but rather creates the event and establishes the facts.

The same analyst began to refute rumors linking the successes of Moroccan football to the presence of Faouzi Lekkaa in the Executive Office of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and explained that Morocco’s return to the Confederation of African Football took place in 2017 during the general assembly in Ethiopia. Despite this membership, he pointed out that the Moroccan presence in the rest of the CAF committees is considered very small.

To drop the narrative of “nepotism,” the journalist himself returned to recent history, recalling that Moroccan clubs and national teams had won many titles before this alleged stage. He also recalled the dark era of African arbitration, citing the Moroccan national team’s match in the 1986 African Cup semi-final against Egypt.

The speaker touched on the remarkable organizational success of the African Cup of Nations hosted by Morocco, stressing in terms of numbers that it is the most widespread and watched continental event in the world, and highlighting that Morocco raised the tournament to World Cup standards, as it was organized in nine stadiums instead of the usual four.

In this context, Estifi criticized the hypocrisy practiced by some, led by Samuel Eto'o, who speaks negatively behind the scenes despite everyone's knowledge of the organizational problems (such as transportation and the condition of the stadiums that were dyed green for television) that marred the African Cup that was organized in Cameroon. He praised the poise of Moroccans, officials and media, who do not look for negatives in the host countries when traveling there.

Regarding the legal dispute with Senegal after the final match, the same analyst borrowed the saying, “Don’t wrestle with a pig in the mud...you get dirty and he has fun,” praising the rational and calm strategic management of the file by Morocco, explaining that “on the day following the match, instead of crying and wailing, the officials of the Royal Moroccan University and the legal experts were working in their offices in silence to prepare their file.”

The same journalist asserted that “whoever has the right does not need noise and screaming,” and strongly criticized “the press conference held by the Senegalese brothers in the French capital, Paris,” describing it as “noise and blackmail empty of any legal defenses,” noting that “the Senegalese official was unable to answer when a journalist asked him about the legal basis for their appeal, while Morocco based its defenses on Articles 82 and 84.”

Estifi also denounced “the Senegalese government’s claims that there are Senegalese detainees in Morocco,” stating that “these were subjected to a fair trial for committing crimes of sabotage that cost the stadium 500 million centimes in losses, and attacks on workers.” He considered that the penalties issued against them “were very light and lenient compared to the criminal law, which may punish such acts with ten years in prison.”

To prove that replaying matches or punishing those who withdraw is not a Moroccan innovation, the speaker mentioned historical facts, such as the rematch of Uzbekistan and Bahrain, and the rematch of South Africa and Senegal itself in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers, a decision that Senegal benefited from and qualified thanks to.

The analyst devoted an important part of his analysis to criticizing the media system and the influence of “propaganda,” and explained that the opponents are adopting the mentality of Hitler’s Information Minister, Goebbels: “Lie, then lie until people believe you,” “with the aim of establishing a distorted mental image that Morocco controls the CAF.”

Estifi called for going beyond the stage of “reactions” and pursuing rumors to disprove them, calling for building a strong proactive media discourse, stressing the need for the media to address reason, not emotion, and to avoid inciting fanaticism, relying on professionalism and logic. He also gave an example of the danger of the lack of journalistic investigation with the rumor of “Morocco’s appeal against the referee of its match against Cameroon,” where Moroccan journalists took the news and published it as a fact without verifying it, to the point that Cameroonians were surprised by this press, and the news was not lied until the Egyptian referee Amin Omar himself denied it.

In the context of digital chaos, the speaker called on the guardian institutions, led by HACA (the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication), to expand their oversight to include websites and not just radio and television. He also called on journalists to develop their working tools to confront fake news and fabricated images using artificial intelligence techniques, stressing that media preparedness must be a permanent strategic action, especially with major events such as the World Cup approaching.