The Spain-Morocco World Cup match
⚽ The two national teams will clash on the pitch tommorow evening in Qatar. Can clashes on the streets of Spain when the match ends be avoided?
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The World Cup knockout match between Morocco and Spain is tomorrow at 4 p.m. One of the two teams will lose and be sent home. The sporting tension is assured. The social or political tension is too. Last week, there were riots in several Belgian and Dutch cities after the Belgium-Morocco match. Who will win tomorrow’s match and what will happen on Spain’s streets afterwards?
According to INE figures for 2021, there are more than 870,000 Moroccans registered as living in Spain. In 2003, almost twenty years ago now, there were 379,000, so the official number has more than doubled. Nobody knows how many more unofficial residents there might be.
Diplomatically in this parliament, we have seen several clashes between Spain and Morocco over the border fences in Ceuta and Melilla, including the June disaster in which two dozen people died, and Sánchez's trip to Rabat with the sudden announcement that Spain now recognises Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. On a political level, the populist right has not stopped its xenophobic discourse against African or Latino immigrants, especially against those they call "MENAS", the youngest immigrants.
The Spanish provinces with the largest Moroccan populations are Barcelona (134,000), Murcia (92,000), Madrid (77,000), Almería (64,000) and Alicante (45,000), but Barcelona's 134,000 Moroccans are 2.3% of a total population of 5.7 million, while the 64,000 in Almería are 8.7% of a total provincial population of 731,000 people. Whatever happens tomorrow, 99.99% of Moroccans and Spaniards will not do anything to anyone else.
The Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities has issued a statement, though, saying that, win or lose, "it cannot lead to public disorder that harms our neighbors or the urban environment that is for everyone's use" nor can it lead to "contempt for others" .
The Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers has appealed "to the Moroccan community to watch the World Cup matches in a festive, sportsmanlike and respectful atmosphere" while at the same time "not responding to threats and provocations from extremists".
As far as I am aware, as I write this on Monday afternoon, there have been no statements from any Spanish ministers about peaceful national coexistence tomorrow. On social media, there are ultra accounts calling for Spaniards to "defend the streets from acts of vandalism" in, at least, Seville, Madrid and Valencia. In both Spanish and French on Twitter, on both sides, there are thousands of messages that could best be described as extreme nationalism or at worst virulent energetic racism.
Police reinforcements with additional riot units have been announced for the match against Morocco tomorrow in, at least, Madrid, Barcelona, Almería, Murcia, Cartagena and Lorca. An internal National Police memo published by some media admits that: "the only objective measure we have is the number of Moroccans who are officially registered in each of your regions." They can only send reinforcements to where there are generally more Moroccans.
So far, all the Moroccan celebrations that I have seen in videos from around Spain for the other matches have been peaceful. But Morocco has won or drawn in all three, and against other countries. Now they are playing against Spain and somebody tomorrow has to lose. Is there more chance of violence or problems if Morocco or Spain wins or loses? Psychologically, which outcome would most anger which national group, against which local socio-political background turmoil, and lead someone, in any case very few people compared to the total populations, to start throwing bricks or roaming the streets angrily looking for trouble?
Let's hope nothing happens but if the authorities already fear these problems will occur in several cities, hence the deployment of police reinforcements, shouldn’t they also be making more political and diplomatic gestures, even very high-level and highly publicized ones, to encourage a peaceful evening and sporting attitude? Or, in addition to the victory of one of the two teams and the defeat of the other tomorrow, will we also see tears, regrets and political excuses because they just couldn’t manage it any better?
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