Wydad AC

Widad Casablanca (also known as Wydad and WAC) is a sport club with sections in many different sports in Casablanca, Morocco. Its main rival is Raja Casablanca.

History

The resistance against the oppression of French protectorate was the reason behind the origin of the creation of Widad Athletic Club. Thus, well before independence, the port of Casablanca was surrounded by a great number of swimming pools, and to be able to have access to these swimming pools, it was necessary to belong to a club; clubs which were created and managed by Europeans. From 1935, a certain number of Jewish and Muslim Morrocans could adhere to these clubs and thus benefit from the swimming pools of the city. But quickly the number of Morrocans became too significant which caused the certain kind of fear among Europeans who sacked the 'natives' out of the clubs. Thus the idea came from the creation of a club by Morrocans, of such kind to be allowed the Jews and the Muslims to bathe in the swimming pools of the port. Thus the idea had just created the club of Widad with for objective acknowledged to take part in the competitions of water polo.

All was not very easy, because after having required several times the authorization of the French authorities for the creation of the club, requests which were each time without answer, Wydadis of the first hour (Haj Mohamed Benjelloun and the doctor haj Abdellatif Benjelloun Touimi), contacted association Free Morrocan woman to try to regulate it the problem of the recording of the club. Thus the general resident Nogues intervened personally to authorize the creation of Wydad, this under certain very constraining conditions: distance from religion, distance from politics, distance from racism towards French, division of the 12 seats of the committee between Morrocans and equal French with share. Thus on May 8, 1937, for the first time in Morocco, a club was created by Morrocans.

The members of the first management committee of Widad were: Haj Mohamed Benjelloun (president), Maitre Mohamed Zarouk, Mohamed Ben Lahsan, Haj Mohamed Ben Mohamed Ben Lahsan Benjelloun, Ralph Botbol, Charles Benchetrit, Doctor Bienvenu, Lucien Bilikrinieu, Pierre Andre, Boravel, Croné Vivirel, Mohamed Masson It is necessary to finally note the great contribution of the doctor haj Abdellatif Benjelloun Touimi, who was to deal with the drafting of the status of the club, this last had the idea to create a general status and not specific to swimming, in such manner to be able to create other sections for the club, thus east appeared the tennis in 1938 and football in 1939, section which Haj Tounsi alias Père Jégo created.

Several versions circulate according to the origin of the name of the club. In Arabic, Widad means Love. Each historian brings his explanation. But that brought back by Ahmed Lahrizi in his book on Wydad volume 1, is the most widespread and the most plausible. According to the book, during the frequent meetings which intervened before the creation of the club, one of the founder members arrived late, the reason was that he watched the last film of the actress and Egyptian singer Oum Kaltoum, whose title is "Wydad". Thus came the idea to the founders to give the name to the club.