A 20-year-old has been arrested for making racist comments online about the Moroccan national team in Madrid. The Morocco side were staying at the Hotel Eurostars Madrid Towers ahead of their friendly tie with Peru on Tuesday night.

Following on from their victory over Brazil, they will face Peru on Tuesday night at 21:30 CEST at the Civitas Metropolitano. Neither side has had ideal preparation after the Peru team had their own run-in  with the local police on Monday night.

The employee in question posted pictures on his snapchat with the following racist comments.

“The national team of Morocco in the Towers, you guys are p***takers. Damn s***** Moors. I s*** on Ramadan and on their f***ing dead.”

“Giving service to Ramadan bull**** and their fucking bull**** beliefs.”

Morocco coach Walid Regragui spoke on the matter in a press conference, and was impressive with his cool outlook and mature response to the event.

“It has affected the players a lot and the people of Morocco as well. I think we should not do more than that, he is a young boy and he is going to learn from this. Now with social networks there are kids who are lost. There is racism in life, but I think it’s something more social than a kid’s problem. He’s a kid who has a life after this, and I don’t want to ‘kill’ him’.”

Regragui (sobre los comentarios racistas del empleado): “Es un chaval de 20 años, los chavales están perdidos en la redes sociales. El racismo es social, no creo que el chico es mala persona. Lo mejor que podemos hacer es perdonar ese chaval y espero que aprenda de esa falta.” pic.twitter.com/s6RcNio27c

— Haritonavir (@HTanouti) March 27, 2023

Few would show his composure in the face of such infuriating insults.

“We are Muslims and in our religion we learn to forgive. We are going to forgive him, let him learn about this topic. Perhaps he will set an example for other people to be careful when they write on social networks. The best example we can show is to forgive him, make him see that he has committed a mistake and that he learns from it, that he sees that what he thinks of Muslims is not good,” Regragui responded to Marca.

The Morocco coach would go on to say that he held no rancour with the hotel either.

“You can’t do anything, it’s a human issue, you can’t control your workers. We’re not going to talk anymore, it’s over. We forgive him and surely the Moroccans will too.”

This is the latest incident of racism towards footballers in Spain, following numerous instances of abuse towards Vinicius Junior while playing. Increasingly, it is hard to avoid the idea that Spanish society must be doing far more to tackle the societal issue.