Olympique Safi Football Club President and RNI’s MP Mohamed Al Haidawi was apprehended in Casablanca on suspicion of tampering with tickets for the Qatar 2022 World Cup and selling them on the black market.
The issue centers on ticket sales for the Morocco-France World Cup semi-final match that was supposed to be distributed free of charge to fans.
When a series of audio snippets went viral on social media, Al Haidawi was suspected of exploiting his position to fraudulently sell World Cup tickets at exorbitant prices.
Al Haidawi stated that the person who leaked it did not publish the content of the first call.
He told a local news site that the man had originally contacted him, wanting two tickets.
Al Haidawi claims to have notified the individual that he did not have the tickets and instead advised him that he should acquire them from another seller for 6,000 dirhams ($600) per ticket.
Authorities acted after the National Judicial Police completed an extensive investigation into the ticket-selling incident. The inquiry began to uncover the facts and specifics underlying the illicit black-market sale of the tickets.
Mohamed Al-Haidawi, a member of the ruling RNI, was submitted to his party’s disciplinary committee in December 2022 for his role in the World Cup ticket fraud.