Qatari Football Lands in The Soup Over The Moroccan Door!

ALBAWABA - It might definitely be seen as a storm in a tea cup, or more appropriately a "storm  in the world cup." This time, its between Qatar and Morocco over the football World Cup Doha is hosting in late 2022. So the countdown has started and it should be fun time for everyone but there are hitches and glitches as usual about Arab identity. 

Could they lead to fights one wonders? Well maybe just words of infinite wisdom!

Thanks to the social media, frustrations are splashed all over the place. Moroccans are angry, no, outraged at the Qatari World Cup promotional page that include footballers facing a door that clearly represents Moroccan traditions because it is the entrance to the tomb of the late King Mohammed V who happens to be the grandfather of the current Moroccan King Mohammed VI based in Rabat.

In a rather harsh eye-opener one writer simply says "Qatar uses Moroccan Amazigh architectural heritage to promote the 2022 World Cup...a premeditated theft." What theft, its only electronics! Arabs should be brothers! But not so because of the hurt.

For the Moroccan bloggers this is a question of identity not to be played with. They say when it was shown on the Qatari website it gave the wrong image that the door was from that region, and not all the way from the tip of North Africa namely Morocco. 

For their part, the football authorities in Doha tried to smooth things down by the stressing that Qatar seeks to project its hosting of the great international event as an Arab euphoria that everyone in this part of the region should be proud of. But this is not washing down too well with out brethren.

 
So what to do? Take all the posts down as the Moroccans are demanding that might  be good in itself but will it heal? Maybe it is because the door has the imprinted slogan of "Qatar 2022"  with matches from 21 November till 18 December.

Lots and lots of people are talking about the issue, the culture, the architecture and its regional framework that spans all the way to Andalusia Spain and right down to the Arabian Peninsula and Qatar that has been preparing for the World Cup with FIFA for goodness knows how long.

Its Moroccan traditions that are stake here but these are mixed with "Amazighi" culture and Islamic culture in the middle. This is not to say about the Arabic culture and language. But many question the Amazighi culture to the annoyance of lots of other people who consider themselves part of that community that stretch across the Moroccan-Algerian tense divide.

So is it a storm in a tea cup? From the reaction of the people not one bit.