Morocco head coach Walid Regragui appears to have aimed some thinly veiled criticism at Manchester United following a disagreement between the two parties regarding the release of defender Noussair Mazraoui ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Man United had intended to use Mazraoui in their Premier League game against Bournemouth at Old Trafford on Monday evening -- a match which finished 4-4 -- but Morocco denied their request to have the player available for the fixture.
While two other AFCON-bound players -- Amad Diallo and Bryan Mbeumo -- did feature in the match, United subsequently escalated the Mazraoui issue to FIFA, requesting support from world football's governing body, sources told ESPN.
"With the clubs, we are always in contact," Regragui told ESPN on Saturday. "We've been speaking with them for a while, but we've had problems with some; we've defended our [interests], and they defended their own."
United believe that, with their Premier League rivals playing on Sunday -- with their African players available -- their fixture with Bournemouth being moved to Monday night for television, and therefore within the FIFA release window, has proved costly.
FIFA ultimately sided with Morocco, citing their own release period beginning on December 15.
"However, the FIFA dates are the FIFA dates," Regragui added. "We have to give thanks to Real Betis, we discovered a great club with their class, and to Fenerbahce, with [Sofyan] Amrabat, or [Abde] Ezzalzouli, [Youssef] En-Nesyri, they agreed that this competition for Africans is important.
"However, with other clubs, we had problems until the last minute," he concluded. "It's ok, but we did have problems right until the end."
Mazraoui is understood to have behaved respectfully and trained professionally amidst the club-vs-country row, before eventually leaving to join his international teammates on Sunday.
Sources have informed ESPN that constructive conversations between Man United and both Cameroon and the Ivory Coast allowed them to keep Mbeumo and Diallo until after the Bournemouth game, although while their teams are only due to open their AFCON campaigns on Christmas Eve, hosts Morocco kick off the tournament three days earlier, on Sunday.