Serbian Embassy Denies Visa Refusal for Moroccan Handball Team Ahead of Belgrade Tournament

In a right of reply received by Bladi.net, the Serbian Embassy in Rabat specifies that it did not refuse visas to Moroccan handball players. It also stated that it was contacted on November 15 by the Moroccan school handball delegation, which asked for information on the visa procedure and that it provided this information through its email, while warning the participants about the time required to obtain visas for Serbia. The Moroccan delegation was supposed to travel to Belgrade on November 27, 2021, while the visa procedure usually takes between 15 and 20 days. The embassy says it received the visa applications on November 22, 2021. As a result, it was too late to process them.

Regarding the intervention of the Secretary General of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the Serbian Embassy assures that it was not contacted by any official from the ministry, either from Serbia or Morocco.
"The embassy hopes that in the future, sports exchanges will intensify [...]. Serbia attaches great importance to relations with the Kingdom of Morocco and the embassy strongly encourages cooperation between the two countries, especially in the fields of culture and sports, which greatly contribute to the rapprochement between the two peoples and countries," concludes the right of reply.