Abdelghani El Mansouri

Abdelghani El Mansouri, also reported as Abdelghani Mansouri, was a Moroccan footballer and coach who played as a defender for Kawkab Marrakech during the club's golden era and represented Morocco at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. He died in Marrakesh on 8 October 2026 at the age of 84.

He was born in 1942, in Marrakesh according to the Olympic historians' database Olympedia. He began playing in the youth teams of Mouloudia d'Oujda before moving to Marrakesh, where he joined Nejm de Marrakech and helped the club win a historic promotion to the second division. He then moved to Al Alam Marrakchi, the club on whose foundations Kawkab Athletic Club of Marrakech, known as KACM, was built.

At KACM he became an important member of a generation that played alongside figures such as Moulay El Hassan Zidane and Krimou Ez-Zidani. That side gave the club one of the finest chapters in its history, winning the Moroccan Throne Cup three years running, in 1963, 1964 and 1965. His club form earned him a place in the national team, and he was part of the Moroccan squad at the 1964 Olympic football tournament in Tokyo, one of the high points of his career.

After Kawkab he moved to Wydad Athletic Club in Casablanca, but a serious knee injury cut his playing career short. He stayed in the game as a coach, taking charge of several clubs in the region, including Nejm de Marrakech and Mouloudia de Marrakech, before returning to KACM, the club closest to his heart.

On the pitch he was admired for his elegance, calm and reading of the game. A defender who could bring the ball out cleanly from the back and who was known for fair play, he was nicknamed the Kaiser by his contemporaries, after Franz Beckenbauer.

His death on 8 October 2026 was reported by the Moroccan newspaper L'Opinion, which described him as an elegant player and a man deeply attached to football whose career was bound up with the golden age of football in Marrakesh. The cause of death was not made public.