Dakali monitors the confrontation of Moroccan sports achievement with the battle of digital deception

Hespress Sports Dakali monitors the confrontation of Moroccan sports achievement with the battle of digital deception Photo: AFP Hespress from Rabat Sunday 19 July 2026 - 04:00 Mohamed Bentaleb Dakali, a professor of political science at Cadi Ayyad University in Marrakech and director of the National Center for Studies and Research on the Sahara, believes that competition in major sports championships has gone beyond the green rectangle, extending to the digital space. He explained in an article received by Hespress that the competition does not end with the final whistle, but rather a new phase begins in which narratives, comments, and digital content compete. Dakali added that the participation of the Moroccan national team in the 2026 World Cup finals was accompanied by a flood of conflicting readings and misleading content that sometimes sought to downplay its value or take some facts out of context. He called for building a strong information environment based on professional media, institutional communication, media education, and digital culture, which would enhance society's ability to confront deception and preserve the value of sports achievement. This is the text of the article: Major sports championships have become events that transcend the boundaries of competition on the field, extending their impact to the digital space, where athletic performance intersects with image production, public opinion formation, and influence on collective perception. With the final whistle, a parallel competition begins, in which news, comments, images, and video clips compete. The narratives and interpretations multiply as much as the teams competing on the green rectangle. The debate now goes beyond analyzing performance and reading the outcome to reinterpreting the event, shaping its meaning, and influencing how the public views it. The participation of the Moroccan national team in the 2026 World Cup finals clearly embodies this shift. From a sports perspective, it confirmed its brilliance on the international level by reaching the round of 16 for the second time in a row, in a trajectory that reflects years of continuous work, investment in training, development of infrastructure, improvement of sports governance, and enhancement of technical coaching quality. The stage that followed the participation saw the competition move to the digital space, where the sports achievement became a subject of conflicting interpretations, opposing readings, and biased content that sometimes sought to downplay its value or reinterpret some facts out of context or feed narratives that do not rely on objective data. This reflects a deeper shift in the public sphere in the digital age, as sports have become one of the tools of soft power for countries, and the success of national teams has become part of their international image. Traditional media now work alongside content creators, influencers, digital platforms, and the public itself, which has become a partner in producing, disseminating, and reinterpreting information. This shift has expanded the circle of participation, but it has also made the speed of dissemination often precede the standards of accuracy and verification. In this context, influencers on digital platforms, along with popular sports analysts outside traditional media institutions, are gaining an increasing role in shaping sports perception. Many of them have a large audience, which gives them significant power to direct public debate. This influence can be positive when it contributes to simplifying information, spreading sports culture, and providing balanced analyses that enrich public debate. However, it can also turn into a source of deception when excitement and the pursuit of interaction overshadow accuracy and objectivity, or when judgments are based on fragmented facts and their removal from context or on conclusions that do not rely on sufficient technical data. Therefore, the most widely disseminated content is often the most controversial or emotional, not necessarily the most accurate or reliable. This is not only related to the behavior of users but also to the way algorithms used by digital platforms work, as they tend to highlight content that can attract attention and prolong interaction, regardless of its accuracy or cognitive value. A cropped image, a short clip, or a comment isolated from its context can become material on which conclusions are built that are not supported by facts.