Video .. The first national football tournament for amputees in Morocco

Khaled Ait Naser-Agadir

With a high desire and strong will, a group of amputees young people in Morocco became involved in the first national football championship for amputees, under the supervision of the Royal Moroccan Sports Federation in the position of handicap in the city of Agadir in southern Morocco.

Where a group of young amputees in Morocco managed to establish local soccer teams in some Moroccan cities, and these teams met in the form of coordination, calling for organizing the first national championship for amputees in Morocco, which was responded to by the Royal Moroccan University with the participation of six teams from different cities.

The second stage of the tournament started on Sunday, February 16 in the city of Agadir, with the participation of six teams, including one from Salé, two from Casablanca, two from Fez and the city of Agadir.

The first national championship
"We are delighted to have organized this first national championship by the Royal Moroccan University for the sport of persons with disabilities," said Hamza El Mouden, captain of the Al-Nahdha Association for Special Needs Football Association.

"This is the first championship the university has taken upon itself to frame and manage its affairs, and it is a start for this type of sport in Morocco, which we expect to receive a great deal of radiance," Al-Zoukari Al-Idrisi Al-Hashemi, the national referee at the Royal University, told Al Jazeera Net.

"After two years of waiting and searching for players and training, we have the honor to compete in this first national championship," said Mohamed Bouhnin, founder of the amputees football team in Casablanca, for Al Jazeera Net.

Challenges faced by the championship
Despite their disabilities, these young people were able to overcome all obstacles and were able to establish local football teams for amputees, and in the absence of the necessary support these young people started establishing legal societies that supervise these teams, and they also opened pages for these teams on Facebook in order to promote this sport and encourage young people to join to her.

"We faced challenges in forming the team in Agadir, in terms of gathering young people who are amputees, providing training facilities, and educating people that there is football for amputees," said Nuzha Al-Turkzi, public writer of the Al-Nahda Al-Aghadeereya Association for People with Special Needs for Football, in an interview with Al Jazeera Net.

"We found great difficulty in searching for amputees players, and we also faced great challenges in transportation, and for this we have to rent a means of transportation to play in other cities, and we are waiting for the institutions concerned to support to overcome these challenges for this team, which represents a sus of urgency."

Will and determination
With one man and crutches, these youths play football on the field, in an atmosphere of brotherhood and sport. "With determination and will, we can achieve anything we aspire to, and we should not look at these players deficiently," he said.

Some of them lost their leg or hand as a result of a traffic accident, and some of them lost their leg due to cancer. Despite this, their handicap did not prevent them from their dreams, and despite the exclusion and marginalization that followed them.

"Today we won an important victory in the city of Agadir, we won over two teams from the city of Casablanca, and the match passed in an atmosphere of very high sportsmanship, and this tournament was an opportunity to get acquainted with friends in all cities."

The ambition to form a national team
These young people aspire to establish the first national football team for amputees in Morocco, just like other countries. "Our ambition is greater than a local team or a regional team, our ambition is to establish a national team, and this is what we wish after the end of this tournament to represent Morocco in world championships," Nuzha Al-Turkzi told Al Jazeera Net.

"There are a lot of energies and highly skilled players we got to know about in all the teams that participated in the tournament, and that is why we aspire to create a Moroccan national team with positive results in the world championships," says the captain of the Agadir team for amputees.

And Al-Zoukari Al-Idrisi Al-Hashemi concludes, "We hope to support and accompany these teams and to provide them with the assistance they need in order to live up to what is better."