Is Zakaria Aboukhlal a Salafist? This is what the Moroccan Arabic-language online medium Achkayen claimed in an article published on Friday December 23, reports La Dépêche. The digital medium published a long article entitled “Aboukhlal, a Salafist in the national team”, in which it explicitly accused the Moroccan international and player of the French first division Toulouse Football Club (TFC) of glorifying Salafism, an extremely radical movement of Islam that has largely inspired terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.
Zakaria Aboukhlal, who played for the Moroccan team at the World Cup in Qatar and made it to the semi-finals, is specifically accused in the article of “propagating Salafism within the Moroccan national team and trying to win players to his cause”, as well as appearing in videos alongside European Salafist imams and another Moroccan player to convince non-Muslims to convert to Islam.
These accusations did not stop the Moroccan federation and the player’s Toulouse club from defending him. The Royal Moroccan Football Federation released a statement on Sunday December 25 in which it “categorically” rejected the allegations against its player. It stated “that it will exhaust all legal remedies to protect the members of the national team from all false accusations concerning their personal lives or their conduct in the performance of national duty”.
The club condemns the accusations made by this side, which are false, unfounded and derogatory (…) and reserves the right to exhaust all legal remedies to defend the image and integrity of Zakaria,” wrote the Toulouse club.