Politics
The Muslim manosphere and Achraf Hakimi
The World Cup quarter-final against France folds every saga about Moroccan defender and captain Achraf Hakimi into a single frame.
France is the team that ended Morocco’s historic 2022 run, the country where Hakimi became a global star at Paris Saint-Germain — and the legal system now charging him with rape over a 2023 allegation.
Hakimi denies any wrongdoing. But if convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison. A quarter-final loss Thursday would raise the possibility that this becomes Hakimi’s last World Cup game and that Moroccan football loses one of its clearest throughlines from its 2022 breakthrough as a global football power to its role as a 2030 World Cup co-host.
A global vessel for Arab, African and Muslim pride in the last World Cup in Qatar, Hakimi soon emerged as a different kind of icon elsewhere: In 2023, amid his divorce in Spain, online manosphere circles obsessively embraced an unverified rumor that he shielded assets from his wife by placing them in his mother’s name. Lauded by figures including controversial online influencer Andrew Tate, Hakimi was cast as a masculine legend imagined to have outsmarted a woman in a rigged gendered battle. This lore has been resurfacing the past three weeks, since a French court ruled Hakimi would stand trial for the rape charge.
While Hakimi’s exploits clash for some fans, they are congruent enough for others. Within Muslim manosphere circles, there is no contradiction between Hakimi the superstar and Hakimi the defendant.
Western manosphere ideologies frame men as individuals dispossessed by the state and by women who have gained too much power, with divorce law, false allegations, dating culture and economic independence among major fixations.
In specific Muslim contexts, manosphere beliefs echo similar gripes but center them around a restored family unit and the sharper absolutism that gender roles have strayed from divinely sanctioned hierarchy. More than a simple misogyny flanked by cherry-picked Quranic verses, it is a politics of anti-liberal gender views, minority resentment and secular distrust.
French courts strike a particular nerve: State secularism promises neutrality toward religion, but many deem that neutrality a guise to police Muslim communities and their racial minorities. Hakimi will be adjudicated in what some defenders consider an inherently hostile judicial order — one shaped by modern Western feminism and refracted through older tropes of the “dangerous Muslim man” in Europe, where biases pull on centuries of migration, empire and civilizational suspicion.
The cultural politics of Hakimi’s case extend beyond the star athlete. Patriarchal interpretations of Islam can mobilize new support for right-wing parties in Western democracies, even amid otherwise exclusionary stances. And Muslim women are left with a pointed dilemma: Naming gender violence within their communities can be read as feeding anti-Muslim sentiment, while not naming it feeds the silence that insulates perpetrators.
That tension between gender and religion, defense and accountability, surrounds the Hakimi case during this unresolved period. The verdict isn’t likely to lead to a resolution that satisfies all — acquittal will look to many as if his status protected him, and conviction will suggest to others that no status would ever be enough to earn fair treatment.
Seventy-two members of the European Parliament on Wednesday demanded an investigation into FIFA President Gianni Infantino after FIFA lifted the red card suspension of star U.S. striker Folarin Balogun following a call from President Donald Trump.
Last Thursday, Trump called Infantino to lobby for the automatic ban given to Balogun after receiving a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina to be overturned. Four days later, FIFA’s disciplinary committee cleared Balogun to play in a crunch match against Belgium.
In a letter sent to the national football federations of the EU’s 27 member countries and obtained by Blue Light News, the lawmakers asked them to “add your voice to recent calls in support of an investigation” into Infantino.
“Let us be clear: FIFA’s decision to change the rule on red card suspension mid-tournament is a disgrace and perversion of justice,” said Renew MEP Barry Andrews, who wrote the letter. “Once again, we’ve seen Infantino and FIFA surrender to the demands of the Trump administration.”
Despite Balogun taking part, the U.S. lost to a fired-up Belgium team, whose players mocked Trump’s dancing after scoring their fourth goal in a 4-1 demolition of the host nation.
The lawmakers argue that since FIFA imposes its ethics rules on the 27 member associations, they are similarly “bound by FIFA’s code of ethics to demand that senior FIFA officials be held accountable.”
FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter, but Infantino has previously denied influencing the committee’s decision.
Wednesday’s letter is the third missive in two weeks from European lawmakers to the world football governing body. Andrews wrote a letter last week urging FIFA to investigate Infantino over alleged violations of the organization’s own political neutrality rules, telling Blue Light News that FIFA was “profoundly corrupt.” Two days later, fellow Renew MEP Petras Auštrevičius rebuked FIFA over its decision to allow Russians to participate in the U-15 World Cup in October.
The previous letters drew signatures from 50 and 44 MEPs, respectively, making the newest letter the most broadly supported push yet. The letter was signed by MEPs from six parliamentary groups.
“Not many issues can garner that level of bipartisan support,” Andrews added.
Republicans had welcomed Graham Platner as a foil to Collins, who is trying to win a sixth Senate term in a state that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024…
Read More
No smoking guns have been found, but the Oversight Committee is likely to continue probing powerful associates of the late, convicted sex offender…
Read More
- Trump’s renewed Iran strikes put Republicans in a bind
- Brussels wants action over Trump-Infantino red card controversy
- Capitol agenda: Collins loses her foil in Platner
- Why the House’s Epstein investigation isn’t going away
- How we got here …
- Cheyenne Hunt: Democrats drew a ‘red line’ with Platner
- Collins’ allies think Platner’s exit makes her reelection bid tougher
- The Muslim manosphere and Achraf Hakimi
- Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is officially running for Senate
- Mbappé-Paraguay racism row rumbles on
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words