Opinion Piece: Sebastian Somacal, Morocco’s Highest-Paid Unemployed Person

“Sebastien Somakal, Morocco’s Highest-Paid Unemployed Person”

At the beginning of this season, Raja Club Athletic made a bewildering move by appointing Sebastien Somakal as its Sporting Director. Despite his modest resume and limited experience, the man found himself “miraculously” at the helm of the technical management of one of the continent’s largest clubs. Some were initially optimistic, believing the club was adopting a new strategy to give young European talents a chance, but this illusion quickly faded, revealing that it was nothing more than a blatant waste of the team’s finances without any notable contribution.

A simple review of Somakal’s career shows that it can be summarized as a “school coach.” He spent 15 years with Bordeaux’s youth categories, followed by a fleeting experience as technical director with Tunisia’s Étoile Sportive du Sahel, which did not last long. After that, he entered a period of unemployment for two years before being rescued by Tours FC, playing in the French fifth division (National 3 amateurs), only to be fired again after two seasons. He returned to his usual unemployment for two additional years, then joined Tunisia’s CA Bizertin, where he did not last even a year before being dismissed due to poor performance. Thus, after two more years of wandering in unemployment lines, Raja came to dust him off and grant him a sensitive position and the highest salary of his modest career.

Instead of building a project, Somakal inaugurated his duties by sabotaging the team’s stability; he created a crisis with the former coach, Lassaad Chabbi, who, by the way, possesses coaching certifications that exceed Somakal’s own diplomas. He prepared a report against him, leading to his ouster after only two rounds in which he collected 4 points (including a draw with FAR Rabat, which reached the Champions League final in the same season). To tighten his grip, the novice coach “Fabrice David” was brought in to be a mere docile tool that would not deviate from Somakal’s recommendations, which are the same recommendations that had already proven their failure in other clubs.

We are not making gratuitous judgments based on his “weak” past here; rather, we went into the field and investigated. We contacted many clubs and football academies in Casablanca, and the result was that the man made no contact with any party to scout talents. We contacted the most prominent scouts in the economic capital, and they denied any communication between them and this supposed sporting director. We approached player agents, and they confirmed that they had never dealt with him, and that his role is exclusively limited to taking souvenir photos during contract signings! In clearer terms: throughout his presence in Morocco, Mr. Sebastien has failed to build a network of sports contacts that would enable him to perform his duties, and he has not presented a single name that would benefit the first team or even the academy.

The conclusion here is that Sebastien Somakal is nothing but “Morocco’s most expensive unemployed person,” draining Raja’s treasury to secure a comfortable retirement for himself, covering the years of unemployment that inevitably await him after his impending dismissal.

In the face of this complete farce, the baffling mystery remains the absolute silence of the club president, Mr. Jawad Ziyat, regarding this grave mistake he made, and his passive stance instead of intervening firmly to save what can be saved before it is too late.