Hakimi Claims Fame Made Him a Target in Rape Case

When you’re one of the biggest names in professional football, every accusation becomes amplified. That’s the argument Achraf Hakimi is now making as he faces trial on rape allegations that he says would’ve been dismissed outright if his name wasn’t plastered across sports pages worldwide.

The Morocco captain and Paris Saint-Germain defender ordered to stand trial after a woman accused him of raping her at his home near Paris in March 2023, when she was 24 years old. The Versailles appeals court upheld the charges in February, determining there was sufficient evidence to proceed. But Hakimi isn’t backing down—he’s fighting back publicly, suggesting his celebrity status is precisely why the case moved forward at all.

In a statement on social media, Hakimi declared that a judge essentially told him the opposite would’ve happened without his fame.“Justice looked me in the eyes and said to me:‘If you weren’t famous, there never would have been a case,'”he wrote, adding that he’d remained silent for years, believing patience and dignity would work in his favor. That strategy clearly hasn’t panned out the way he hoped. Now he’s arguing he’s become an easy target, a high-profile name prosecutors could use to score a public win.

What makes this particularly thorny is the timing. Hakimi is currently competing in the World Cup for Morocco, meaning his legal troubles are unfolding on the world’s biggest sporting stage. His team faces Scotland in the near term, so his focus remains split between defending his country and defending himself in court. Whether the allegations prove true or not, the narrative Hakimi is pushing—that fame itself is the culprit—is a risky deflection that may not resonate with a public increasingly skeptical of celebrity pushback against serious accusations.

The trial will ultimately speak for itself. Until then, Hakimi sits in a uniquely uncomfortable position: a footballer caught between sporting glory and legal peril, using the very fame he now claims as a curse as his platform for defense.