So the great Achraf Hakimi, the Moroccan meteor who lit up the World Cup, now faces the dock rather than the pitch. A rape trial. Premier League clubs, we are told, are ‘on alert’. Alert for what, one wonders? For the chance to snap up a discounted defender with a criminal cloud overhead? For the spectacle of justice done in a courtroom rather than on the touchline? Or perhaps for the uncomfortable truth that football, that modern opiate of the masses, is no more immune to moral decay than the Roman Empire was to its own collapsing morals.
Let us not pretend surprise. The pattern is as old as sport itself. Men of immense wealth, worshipped by millions, insulated by lawyers and PR flacks, too often treat women as conquests rather than people. Hakimi’s case is merely the latest in a grim litany. From the Premier League’s own sordid history of sexual assault cases to the broader cultural rot of celebrity impunity, we are seeing a cycle as predictable as the fall of Constantinople. The tragedy is not the crime itself, though that is grievous, but the system that enables it.
Hakimi, let us recall, was a hero. He played with verve, with intelligence, with the fierce pride of a nation that had long been written off. Morocco’s run to the semi-finals was a glorious anomaly: a team from the global south defying the financial might of Europe, proving that talent and spirit could still triumph over money. And now? Now that talent is tainted. That spirit soured. The very thing that made us cheer him becomes the thing that disgusts us. This is the logic of idolatry: the higher the pedestal, the harder the fall.
The Premier League clubs ‘on alert’ are, of course, vultures. They circle not out of moral concern but out of opportunity. If Hakimi is acquitted or if the case collapses, they will bid for his services as if nothing happened. If convicted, they will wash their hands in sanctimony. This is the hypocritical dance of modern football commerce. The game has long ceased to be a sport; it is a financial instrument, a vehicle for branding, a distraction machine. And like all distractions, it works best when we ignore the ugly machinery behind the glamour.
One thinks of the Victorian era, with its sharp divide between public virtue and private vice. The football star today is the Victorian gentleman: outwardly admired, inwardly a mess of appetites and entitlements. The difference is that we now have cameras, social media, and a hunger for scandal that would make a Roman mob blush. We consume the downfall as eagerly as we consumed the rise. It is a sick cycle, a reflection of our own decadence.
What is to be done? Little, I suspect. The forces arrayed against reform are too powerful: the money, the fame, the sheer weight of a culture that worships youth and talent above all else. We will wring our hands, write our columns, and then move on to the next match, the next scandal, the next hero to be toppled. The Hakimi case will be forgotten in a year, replaced by another name, another accusation, another trial. This is not cynicism; it is historical realism.
But perhaps there is a lesson for the rest of us, the little people who do not have millions or lawyers or worshipping fans. The lesson is that glory is fleeting, that talent is not character, that the men we cheer are not necessarily good men. We should enjoy the game, yes, but we should keep our worship in check. For every hero has feet of clay, and the fall is always brutal. The question is whether we, as a society, will ever learn to build pedestals that are lower, safer, and less prone to collapse.
Probably not. But one can hope. Or one can simply watch, as the Romans did, while the blood flows and the cheering continues. Hakimi will have his day in court. Justice may or may not be served. But the rot, I fear, will remain.
