Rabat will host on 18 October an important meeting between the presidents of the football federations of the countries that will host the 2030 World Cup: Morocco, Spain and Portugal.
Fouzi Lekjaa, president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), Pedro Rocha, president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), and Fernando Gomes, president of the Portuguese Football Federation, will meet in the Moroccan capital to finalise details for the organisation of the World Cup and to complete the report to be presented to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), which on Wednesday designated the Ibero-Moroccan bid to host the 2030 World Cup.
The meeting between Fouzi Lekjaa, Pedro Rocha and Fernando Gomes in Rabat will serve to further develop the dossier to be presented to FIFA with all the details of the organisation and one of the hot topics to be discussed at the conclave will be the location of the World Cup final.
It is expected that there could be disagreements over where the final will be played after the Moroccan federation president Fouzi Lekjaa, whom King Mohammed VI appointed president of the 2030 World Cup Committee after receiving him in a royal audience, showed the North African country’s intention for Casablanca to host the decisive World Cup match.
The head of the FRMF announced on the Moroccan radio station Radio Mars the desire for the final of the competition to be held in the Grand Stadium of Casablanca, an infrastructure that will soon be developed and will have a capacity of 93,000 spectators: “We hope to experience an extraordinary final that will honour the entire continent and the young generations in a stadium in Casablanca that will be extraordinary and wonderful”.
These statements by Fouzi Lekjaa generated surprise, as various reports suggested that the final was planned for the Santiago Bernabeu stadium in Madrid and that Morocco could aspire to host the two semi-finals in Casablanca.
Other views suggest that Barcelona could request one semi-final at the Camp Nou, and the other would be for Portugal. A negotiation in which Morocco would ask for the final perhaps as a strategy to secure a semi-final, but this is all speculation and nothing is fixed.
The meeting on 18 October will be the second meeting between the three federation presidents after the one held on 16 September at the Ciudad del Fútbol in Las Rozas, which served to open the round of tripartite meetings.
These meetings are aimed at perfecting the project of the Ibero-Moroccan bid to satisfy FIFA with a view to hosting the World Cup in seven years’ time.
The three countries will host 101 matches and each could have the option to host up to 30 matches. Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay will host an opening match each, as part of FIFA’s tribute to the centenary of the World Cup, which saw its first edition held in 1930 in Uruguay, with a final victory for the Uruguayan hosts themselves.
Morocco will have six stadiums to host 2030 World Cup matches, as announced by the president of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, Fouzi Lekjaa. “To date, we have identified six venues to host the 2030 World Cup, namely Rabat, Tangier, Marrakech, Agadir, Fez, in addition to the Grand Stadium of Casablanca, which will be built soon,” Lekjaa told Radio Mars.
These venues will also host matches of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, which will be another tournament organised by Morocco, demonstrating its great diplomatic and sporting muscle to be able to host various important competitions. Lekjaa also spoke of other competitions that Morocco is hosting in preparation for the World Cup, including the 2024 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations and the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations itself. Meanwhile, the North African country also plans to host the 2029 FIFA Club World Cup, which pits the champion football clubs of the various continental confederations against each other, as Fouzi Lekjaa also noted on Radio Mars.
Morocco will provide important stadiums to host the 2030 World Cup matches. Casablanca will have the Grand Stadium of Casablanca, with a capacity of 93,000 spectators, Rabat with the Prince Moulay Abdellah stadium with a capacity of 53,000 spectators, Tangier with the Ibn Battouta stadium equipped for 68,000 spectators, Marrakech with a stadium with a capacity of 70,000 spectators, and Agadir and Fez, with football fields equipped for more than 40,000 people.
Source: Atalayar
