National team coach Walid Regragui spoke on Monday about the controversy created after racist and Islamophobic content published on social networks by an employee of the Eurostar hotel where the Atlas Lions are staying. .
Responding to questions from journalists at a press conference, the coach felt that the young employee of the 5-star Eurostar hotel in Madrid should be forgiven.
The hotel employee had published stolen photos of the Atlas Lions during their dinner and embedded ultra racist and Islamophobic insults.
“We learned that at night, we knew that the boy was young, 19 or 20 years old. We don’t accept what he did but we are Muslims and we want to show people that in Islam you have to forgive.”said Walid Regragui. “The boy is still young, we will not take him into account”he insisted.
The coach mentioned the holy month of Ramadan and the values of Muslims and the Moroccan people, to explain his process of forgiveness. “It is the month of Ramadan, and God forgives. We are Moroccans and Muslims. It’s true that we reject racism, but maybe he never left his country to see the difference, that he doesn’t know what Islam is, that he doesn’t have never seen Arabs”he tried to justify.
“So today, all we can do is show who the Muslims are. We forgive him. He has a life ahead of him so he won’t ruminate his whole life saying he was treated unfairly.”launched the national coach.
“He made a mistake, he apologized, then there is the legal side, but me as coach of the Morocco team and I can speak in this capacity, we forgive him and if he wants come to our house to see how Moroccans and Muslims are, how Ramadan is going and how it feels (this particularity and the atmosphere) it is welcome”concluded Regragui by ending the controversy.