Dutch deputy leader slams Moroccan football fans after riots

Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius on Friday lambasted Moroccan football fans who clashed with police across the Netherlands following their team’s World Cup defeat to France.

“One by one, countries are knocked out. That’s what a football tournament is all about. We’re disappointed, but we move on with our lives. Except for these ‘supporters.’ Whether they win or lose, they act like madmen,” the leader of the center-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) wrote on X.

“Don’t you feel ashamed that this is how the world sees you?” Yeşilgöz asked.

Dutch media reported several incidents after Moroccan fans took to the streets in multiple cities Thursday night, following their team’s 2-0 loss to France in the World Cup quarterfinal.

Fans threw glass bottles at the police, prompting anti-riot officers to disperse crowds, according to the daily newspaper De Telegraaf.

In Rotterdam, police were pelted with eggs, while in Amsterdam rioters reportedly fired fireworks at law enforcement and behaved aggressively toward journalists.

Yeşilgöz is known for her tough stance on migration. “There are too many people coming into our country,” she wrote on X last year, prior to becoming minister. “This has to be different. And fast too.”

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders also weighed in, accusing Yeşilgöz’s VVD party — which is part of the governing coalition, alongside Prime Minister Rob Jetten’s liberal D66 party and the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) — of having let “scum” into the country.

This is not the first time disturbances have occurred in the aftermath of a Morocco match. Following Morocco’s victory over the Netherlands in the Round of 32, police in The Hague arrested 13 people on suspicion of public violence or disrupting public order. Earlier in the year, after unrest linked to the Africa Cup of Nations final, authorities in The Hague detained a further 14 individuals.