'I was ordered to leave Russia because of my Fifa T-shirt'

Yassine Omairy with his 'shame on Fifa' T-shirt
Yassine Omairy with his 'shame on Fifa' T-shirt Copyright Yassine Omairy
By Euronews
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Moroccan fan says he was detained by police and had his passport taken for wearing a T-shirt criticising Fifa

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A Moroccan football fan has described how he was detained during his team's match and his passport briefly confiscated because he wore a T-shirt criticising Fifa.

Yassine Omairy, a Moroccan-American from Orlando, said he was so disappointed by the refereeing and game management of the African side's defeat to Portugal that he decided to organise a silent protest.

"The referee didn't give two clear penalties and the first Cristiano Ronaldo goal happened after a clear foul missed by the referee. During the game we noticed a lot of unfair decisions went against Morocco and we realised that there was something behind this - we saw that Fifa only supports the big teams," he told Euronews by telephone.

Omairy was so upset that he decided to postpone his return home to attend his team's final game of the tournament against Spain in Kaliningrad. Before the match, he got a small number of T-shirts printed with the slogan "Shame on you Fifa" and also bought black armbands to distribute to fellow fans.

Inside the stadium, after refusing to remove his T-shirt at the request of a match official, he was met by three police officers and agreed to end the protest. Nevertheless, he says he was subsequently escorted to a police station, where his phone and passport were confiscated, before being released to watch the second half of the game.

Yassine Omairy
Yassine Omairy took this photo inside the police stationYassine Omairy

"After the game I went to pick up my passport and they told me to leave the country as soon as possible," he told Euronews. "I will neved forget this experience because I was treated unfairly and wrongly."

He later posted on Facebook that he does not blame Russian authorities for the incident but feels that Fifa was responsible,

Euronews has contacted Fifa for their response.

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