Mohamed Daoudi’s statement, former Secretary-General of the Royal Moroccan Taekwondo Federation, brings back to the forefront a question that goes well beyond the names of sports federations and the disputes between their governing bodies. By raising the role of the Sports Directorate, its responsibility for supervision and oversight, and what he sees as its failure to intervene in certain situations, Daoudi is, perhaps deliberately, opening a much broader question: what happens to administrative oversight when it is no longer simply a mechanism for monitoring, but begins to intervene in the interpretation of the rules that determine the future of sports federations?
The question is obviously not whether the administration should be present in sport or absent from it. The law gives it a clearly defined role. It is expected to monitor, supervise, support and ensure compliance with the applicable rules. But there is an essential difference between an administration exercising oversight on the basis of written rules and an administration in which oversight may ultimately depend on the personal interpretation of the person handling a particular file. At that point, the problem is no longer simply one of enforcing the law, but of how the law is being interpreted and applied.
Law No. 30-09 on physical education and sport has established the administration’s place within the sports system. Article 23 regulates the establishment and functioning of sports federations and provides, among other things, for the submission of their statutes to the administration so that their compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory provisions can be verified. Article 25 then addresses a different matter: approval or accreditation, granted by the administration so that a federation can exercise its powers and benefit from the advantages provided for by law. The same article establishes the principle that only one sports federation may be accredited for each sporting activity.
This distinction is essential because much of the confusion arises precisely from mixing these different stages. Establishing a federation is not the same thing as accrediting it. Approval of its statutes is not accreditation. And accreditation is not the creation of the federation all over again. Each stage has its own legal logic. Once one of these stages has been completed, it should not continually be reopened under the cover of a subsequent administrative procedure.
This is precisely where the case of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu becomes significant—not as a conflict between two federations, and certainly not as a personal matter, but as a concrete case through which the functioning of sports oversight can be examined. The documents available show an administrative process concerning the Royal Moroccan Federation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Similar Sports, with approved statutes and a subsequent accreditation file that became the subject of administrative correspondence. The debate then shifted onto a different terrain altogether: is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a distinct sporting activity, or should it be regarded as part of the activity already supervised by another Jiu-Jitsu federation?
This is precisely where the Ministry’s correspondence of 11 December 2025 becomes important. In that document, the Ministry bases its position on Article 25 of Law 30-09 and considers Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to have emerged from traditional Jiu-Jitsu, which is already represented by an existing federation. From this, it concludes that the establishment of another federation around Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu cannot be accepted under the rule allowing only one accredited federation per sporting activity.
That position must be taken seriously because it represents the administration’s stated reasoning. But precisely for that reason, it raises an equally serious question: on what criterion does the administration determine that these are legally one and the same sporting activity? Is the fact that one discipline historically emerged from another sufficient to establish their legal identity? Is the name the determining criterion? The technical rules? The competition system? The categories? The international governing bodies? Or should several of these elements be considered together?
That is where the real issue lies. Article 25 refers to one federation for the same sporting activity. Before applying that rule, therefore, there must first be a determination of what constitutes that sporting activity. Such a determination should not depend on an administrative impression or on an interpretation that appears only when a particular file reaches a particular desk. It should be based on an objective, written and identifiable criterion that can be applied consistently to all cases.
The issue, therefore, is not to declare that the Ministry is wrong simply because its interpretation differs from that of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu federation. That would be too easy and legally insufficient. The real question is to ask the administration to make the reasoning behind its decision visible. If two disciplines are considered to constitute one activity for the purposes of Article 25, it should be possible to explain why, according to which criteria and on the basis of which technical and regulatory references.
This is precisely where Daoudi’s statement regains its significance. When he questions the role of the Sports Directorate in dealing with dysfunctions within certain federations, he is in fact raising the question of the limits of administrative oversight. A supervisory authority is not a police force installed above sports federations. Its purpose is not to manage their daily affairs in their place or to turn every administrative file into an investigation. Its role is to monitor, supervise, support and apply the law when the conditions established by that law are met.
This distinction becomes even more important when we consider federations that fail to hold general assemblies for several years, governing bodies facing final judicial decisions, or organisations accumulating serious management problems. If the law provides mechanisms for intervention, particularly concerning accreditation and the functioning of federations, the legitimate question is why those mechanisms appear to be activated in some situations while remaining less visible in others.
The real problem, therefore, is not the existence of oversight. It is the absence, where applicable, of a system that makes oversight predictable. A federation should know in advance which obligations it must meet, which documents it must submit, which deadlines apply, what consequences are attached to each breach, and under what procedure the administration may intervene.
Why should this relationship not become largely digital?
A federation wishing to establish itself, obtain approval of its statutes, request accreditation or complete another administrative procedure could submit its file through a single platform. The system would immediately identify the required documents, verify whether they are present, flag missing documents and allow the applicant to follow the progress of the file. Every administrative observation would be linked to the legal or regulatory provision on which it is based.
This would obviously not eliminate the role of the administration. It would eliminate much of the unnecessary opacity surrounding the administrative process.
And this is precisely where artificial intelligence could provide real added value, without ever replacing the public authority. It could automatically compare statutes with the applicable regulatory model, verify document consistency, detect missing elements, flag contradictions and identify the legal provisions that may apply. The official would retain responsibility for the analysis and final decision, but would no longer have to devote a substantial part of his time to repetitive verification tasks.
The benefit would be twofold. The federation would be better protected against arbitrariness or administrative misunderstanding, while the official would also be protected against accusations of favoritism, delay or unequal treatment. The more traceable the procedure, the less it depends on individuals.
This is precisely where the modernization of Moroccan sports governance should begin. It is not a matter of replacing officials with machines, nor of claiming that the staff of the Sports Directorate lack competence. Many of them have solid experience and training. But even the most capable official operates within the limits of the administrative system available to him. If that system is essentially based on paper files, correspondence, successive approvals and administrative interpretations, the risk of delay and unequal treatment remains.
A modern administration should instead allow its officials to concentrate on what genuinely requires their expertise: legal assessment, analysis of specific situations and reasoned decision-making. Much of the rest can be automated.
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu case then takes on another dimension. It is no longer a question of determining who is right between two disciplines. It is about examining what this file reveals about the functioning of administrative oversight. A federation has statutes, an administrative history, an accreditation file and documents that have been examined at different levels. Then, at a certain point, the administration opposes its project with an interpretation of Article 25 based on the unity of the sporting activity. The journalistic question therefore becomes: where does administrative oversight end and administrative interpretation begin?
This is neither an attack on the Ministry nor an automatic defence of a federation. It is a basic principle of governance: an administration exercising significant authority must be able to explain, in an intelligible and verifiable manner, the reasoning that leads to its decision.
This is also why the registration of a federation’s name or trademark should not be presented as proof of sports accreditation. These are different legal matters. Likewise, the international or Olympic recognition of a discipline does not, by itself, exempt a federation from complying with the national rules governing its organisation. Each element must remain within its own legal sphere.
The debate then becomes much healthier. We are not asking the Ministry to automatically recognise a federation. Nor are we asking it to consider a discipline independent simply because it carries a different name. We are asking for something much simpler: that the criterion used to distinguish one sporting activity from another be clearly defined and applied consistently.
Because if two activities are legally one and the same activity, the law must be able to demonstrate why.
And if they are different, the law must be able to demonstrate that as well.
What cannot continue to work indefinitely is a grey area in which the future of a federation depends on how a particular file is interpreted inside a particular office.
This is where the reflection returns to Mohamed Daoudi. His questioning of the Sports Directorate should not lead to a demand for more administrative control. It should lead to a demand for more modern, transparent and predictable control. Moroccan sport does not need an administration that intervenes everywhere. It needs an administration that intervenes precisely where the law requires it to intervene, according to the same rules for everyone.
The difference is fundamental.
Effective oversight is not the ability to block a file. It is the ability to explain why it is blocked, under which legal provision, according to which criterion and through which procedure. Modern oversight is not the accumulation of signatures. It is making the administrative process understandable. Strong oversight is not one in which officials become indispensable. It is one in which the rules remain applicable even when officials change.
This is why reforming sports governance should not begin with multiplying committees or simply replacing one administrative body with another. The idea of a Higher Council for Sport or a High Commission for Sport can naturally be debated, but it will produce no real change if the same practices are merely transferred to a new institution.
The problem is not the name written on the door. It is what happens behind the door.
Moroccan sport needs an administration capable of protecting public funds, monitoring the governance of federations, supporting their development and intervening whenever the law requires it. But that administration must itself accept that its authority is bounded by rules, transparency and traceability.
The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu case allows us to raise this question without turning the debate into a personal confrontation. It shows that between the establishment of a federation, the approval of its statutes and its accreditation, there are distinct legal stages. It also shows that once the administration considers two disciplines to constitute one activity under Article 25, that classification becomes decisive. The criterion behind that classification must therefore be clear, objective and reviewable.
That is ultimately the real lesson of this case.
Reforming sports governance does not mean strengthening administrative policing. It means ensuring that the law becomes stronger than the individuals who interpret it.
And the path is now identifiable: clear rules, public criteria, digital procedures, traceable files, reasoned decisions and artificial intelligence used as an assistance tool—not as a substitute for human responsibility.
The day a federation can submit its file without needing to know the name of the official who will handle it, and the day an official can make his decision without being suspected of having chosen the rules himself, an essential part of the problem will already have been solved.
Moroccan sport therefore does not need a new police force… It needs an administration that applies the law as it stands.
