Minutes after opening his goals in the World Cup, yesterday, Sunday, Spanish national team player Lamine Jamal found himself facing a wave of widespread attacks on social media platforms, after he prostrated in celebration of the goal he scored against the Saudi national team, which angered right-wing Spanish and European accounts, who did not see it as a passing celebration, but rather described it as “Islamization” of the Spanish national team and evidence of “population displacement,” according to their claim.
The attack was not based on criticizing the method of celebration, but rather on questioning Gamal’s affiliation with the Spanish national team, and invoking his Moroccan origins and religious identity in a clearly racist speech targeting Gamal as a symbol of immigrants and Muslims.
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The Al Jazeera Network’s Open Source Unit tracked a sample of posts circulating on the “X” platform, and analyzed the accounts that led the campaign, and how the attack spread from Spanish platforms to global platforms through networks and accounts linked by the same ideas.
Attack before prostration
Tracking the circulation of Jamal’s name on the “X” platform shows that the attack on him did not begin with the celebration prostration only, but that he was present hours before the match, against the backdrop of discussions sparked by an article published by the British newspaper “The Telegraph” entitled “The current Lamine Jamal is very different from the boy who appeared in the Euro.”
The article discussed Gamal’s recent positions, most notably his position on racism in a friendly match against Egypt on March 31, and his raising the Palestinian flag during Barcelona’s celebrations of the league championship. The writer described these actions as “controversial,” adding that they reflect the player’s sense of his value and influence and his desire to use his voice instead of silence.
This description sparked widespread criticism, as many accounts believed that the article presented Jamal’s solidarity with Palestine as if it were a political burden on the player. An activist wrote that Jamal was treated as a “boy with bright eyes” until he raised the Palestinian flag, adding that journalists who historically celebrate athletes like Muhammad Ali today punish those who try to use their voice for a meaningful cause.
The article spread more widely after Jamal’s prostration, and the associated tweet reached thousands of shares and millions of views, before the celebration snapshot turned into a spark for a more extensive campaign.
Many criticized the article’s description of the player’s support for Palestine as controversial, and a blog commented, “Horrifying how the media turns to attack you, the moment you express solidarity with Palestine.”
The article spread widely after Jamal’s prostration, and was re-published on the
“Spain is Christian, not Muslim”
The Open Source Unit’s analysis shows that the attack that followed the celebration began from right-wing Spanish accounts with direct comments rejecting Islam and Muslims, and praising Spain’s Christian religion.
The duality of “Christianity, not Islam” formed the details of the first wave of interaction, in which dozens of well-known right-wing institutions and activists attended.
The account of the “Revolta” (Revolution or Uprising) organization – a far-right youth organization – wrote a comment that said, “Whoever allows Islam for one goal, in the future he will have neither a team nor a nation,” in a clear link between the player’s prostration and the future of the Spanish national identity.
The Canario Today account, which specializes in immigrant news, commented, “Spain is Christian, not Muslim,” in a post that garnered tens of thousands of views within hours, and reflected the most prominent trend in the campaign, which is turning the celebration moment into a religious and identity conflict.
International Christian pages quickly appeared and criticized Sajda Gamal, saying that Spain, for which he plays, is Christian. One of the famous pages said that they would pray for Gamal to leave his Islam.
“Population Replacement” Narrative
The far-right uses the World Cup tournaments to reinforce the narrative of “population replacement,” citing the prominent presence of players of immigrant origins in major European teams, such as France.
Right-wing accounts promote the idea that, in their view, the increasing presence of immigrants in football reflects broader transformations within European societies.
This narrative quickly extended to the campaign to attack Jamal, which was led by right-wing accounts supported by interaction from international accounts within the second wave of the campaign.
The analysis shows that the “La Derecha Diario” account – a newspaper that regularly publishes this type of content – was one of the most prominent accounts that pushed the racist narrative to a higher level, as it published a blog post in which it described Gamal as “the Muslim Lamin Gamal” and “the son of Moroccans,” and linked his celebration of prostration to what he called “population displacement.”
Other accounts also invoked Spanish history, saying that their country was against Islam and expelled it from its land, and could not accept the presence of someone like Lamine who demonstrated his conversion to Islam with Spain’s victories.
Right-wing publications show that the attack on Jamal went beyond his performance on the field, and was linked to his immigrant origins, within the framework of a narrative adopted by the extreme right, which uses the success of players of foreign origins to raise discussions about identity and belonging in Europe.
The analysis also reveals repeated references to Morocco and Guinea, the homelands of his parents, an indication of the spread of publications that questioned his Spanish identity.
One activist wrote, “You saw him kissing the Moroccan shield. His shoes carry the flags of Guinea and Morocco. He carries the flag of Palestine when he celebrates, but he is a true Spaniard, just because people love football more than anything else.”
Tweets were also repeated calling for the player to be excluded, stressing that they did not want to win if players like Jamal were the ones who brought him.
These publications reveal a recurring pattern in the campaign, which is based on dealing with the player’s Moroccan origins as a tool to deny his Spanish affiliation, rather than as part of the biography of a player who officially represents his country’s national team.
Campaign map
The campaign map prepared by the Al Jazeera Network’s Open Source Unit supports this path, as it shows that the wave of attack on Lamine Jamal was not just scattered posts or passing comments, but rather formed within a close and interconnected digital network, in which right-wing, nationalist and religious accounts overlapped around one central narrative: presenting the player’s prostration as a threat to Spain’s religious and national identity.
The analysis included about 6,000 posts within the campaign against Lamine, and showed a network of 2,249 accounts and 2,102 interactions, distributed between posts, reposts, and responses centered around the same messages.
Key accounts emerged within the interaction map, such as mrcatolico_, ortizliberal, irene_freedom, and dvaciamadrid, which did not move in separate directions, but rather seemed intertwined in producing a single multi-formula narrative against the star of the Spanish national team and FC Barcelona on the basis of his religion or the origins of his parents.
The interaction map also shows that the moment of prostration turned into a gathering point for converging digital circles, not into a dispersed discussion, as several accounts converged around one goal: stripping Gamal of his Spanish affiliation, and turning his celebration inside the stadium into propaganda material against Islam, immigration, and players of immigrant origins in Europe.
Thus, Lamine Jamal’s prostration was not just a moment of celebration on the field, but rather it turned in the discourse of the extreme right into an entry point for reproducing racist narratives that serve Islamophobia, targeting the player through his origins and religion, and using his sporting success to raise artificial fears about identity, immigration, and belonging in Spain.
The analysis reveals that right-wing accounts found in Sajda Lamin an opportunity to ignite a wave of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant comments, and to demand their expulsion, with the influence of a player like Jamal constantly increasing, which makes the voices of immigrants stronger in the face of these campaigns.
The talented rising star Lamine Gamal is the youngest player in history to start with Barcelona in the Spanish League. He chose to represent Spain despite his right to play for Morocco or Equatorial Guinea, and he participated for the first time with the first team in September 2023 at the age of 16 years.
