The Africa Cup of Nations 2025 final unfolded in a highly charged atmosphere, punctuated by several flashpoints: an attempted pitch invasion by Senegalese supporters, Senegal's players briefly leaving the field in protest of a late penalty awarded to Morocco, and Brahim Díaz's missed Panenka. In the days that followed, social media turned into a pressure cooker of emotions, with waves of anger, blame, and, at times, openly racist reactions targeting both Moroccans and Senegalese alike. DR ‹ › To better understand these dynamics and the surge of online hostility surrounding the match, Yabiladi spoke with Abderrahim Bourkia, Professor of Sociology of Sport and Media at the Institute of Sport Sciences at Hassan I University of Settat, and President of the Moroccan Association of Sociology of Sport (MASS). How can a football match that ended in chaos on the pitch translate into wider consequences off it, on social media or in real life? A football match that ends in tension or chaos does not remain confined to the sporting arena. On the contrary, it often becomes the starting point of a much broader social dynamic that extends into media spaces, digital platforms, and everyday social relations. Football functions as a symbolic amplifier of social emotions. In Africa, where it occupies a central place in the collective imagination, any disruption on the pitch, whether a controversial decision, a defeat, or a violent incident, can easily be reinterpreted as something more than sport. It becomes a metaphor for injustice, humiliation, or collective failure. In this sense, the match does not end with the final whistle; it continues through discourse. How does social media fuel this dynamic? Social media plays a decisive role in this process. Digital platforms act as emotional accelerators. Images, short clips, and selective interpretations circulate without context, encouraging instant reactions rather than reflection. Algorithms privilege outrage, exaggeration, and confrontation, transforming isolated incidents into symbols of national, ethnic, or cultural antagonism. We should be aware of and pay attention to social media's destructive potential. This is where hate speech and racism begin to emerge. Once the sporting event is framed in terms of «us versus them», frustration is redirected toward imagined enemies. Players, referees, supporters, or even entire nations become targets. Fake news and manipulated narratives reinforce this logic by offering simplified explanations for complex situations, often based on stereotypes or conspiracy-like interpretations. This process reflects a broader crisis of critical thinking in the digital age. Online insults, racialized discourse, and dehumanizing language gradually normalize aggression. In certain contexts, this symbolic violence spills over into physical space: harassment, threats, street confrontations, or discriminatory behavior. The stadium incident thus becomes a pretext for expressing deeper social frustrations linked to identity, exclusion, and recognition. What does this tell us about football and the way we interpret it? These dynamics reveal the dual nature of football. On the one hand, it is a space of social cohesion, collective emotion, and shared belonging. On the other, when poorly mediated by institutions and the media, it can become a mirror of social tensions and a catalyst for conflict. The problem, therefore, is not football itself, but the way it is narrated, instrumentalized, and consumed. Here, the absence or weakening of the civilizing process can lead to violence. In this sense, responsibility lies not only with supporters but also with media actors, influencers, and educational, cultural, and sporting institutions, whose role should be to contextualize events, de-escalate emotions, and promote a culture of critical distance. Without this mediation, football risks being transformed from a space of symbolic rivalry into a vector of social division. And let me say this again: the way a society reacts to a football match tells us much about its relationship to difference, emotion, and collective identity. Sport does not create social tensions; it reveals them. And how those tensions are managed determines whether football becomes a force for cohesion or a trigger for conflict. How can football help us understand the way societies regulate emotions, violence, and collective behavior? I can't stop thinking about a major work by two British sociologists, Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, Sport and Civilization. Elias and his colleague conceptualized the civilizing process as a long-term historical development in which societies gradually regulate human behavior through interdependent networks of social constraints, norms, and emotional controls. In the context of football, this perspective illuminates how the sport has transitioned from informal, sometimes violent, street-level games to highly organized and codified professional leagues that reflect broader processes of social regulation. Elias and Dunning further elaborated on the relationship between sport and emotional management. Football, as a competitive and emotionally charged activity, serves as a medium for socializing players and spectators into acceptable expressions of aggression, rivalry, and collective excitement. In Moroccan and African football arenas, the civilizing process is evident in the progressive regulation of stadium behavior, the professionalization of refereeing, and the establishment of formal leagues and governing bodies. While street football and informal matches often involved direct physical confrontation, contemporary leagues, both national and continental, operate under strict rules, security measures, and codes of conduct that exemplify Elias's principle of social interdependence and behavioral control.
