Morocco - DR Congo match: racist insults target Chancel Mbemba

Many internet users targeted Chancel Mbemba’s Instagram account to respond to his latest posts with monkey or gorilla emojis. Some of them also made racist comments. These racist insults were made following a heated altercation that took place between the captain of the Congolese and Walid Regragui, the coach of the Moroccan team at the end of the match between the Atlas Lions and the Leopards on Sunday. Tensions quickly escalated on the pitch, causing a general brawl between the two teams.

What happened? The Moroccan coach approached Mbemba to shake his hand, before telling him authoritatively "look at me!" several times. Tense, the Congolese was then mimicking the VAR gesture, seemingly indicating that there was indeed no handball on a previous action. Walid Regragui, who was also very tense, directly confronted Mbemba before several people, including Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bounou and the president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) Faouzi Lekjaâ, intervened to separate the two men.

In the mixed zone, the OM defender told journalists that Regragui had insulted him. "I remain silent, it’s better. Everyone knows me, I respect everyone... but I would never have thought to hear that word from the coach, that it would come out of his mouth," Mbemba said. The Atlas Lions coach, for his part, reacted in the post-match press conference: "I have nothing to say, I have a lot of respect for Mbemba. It’s maybe the adrenaline that made him respond like that, there’s no problem. I regret that we didn’t give a good image, neither us nor the DRC."