King Mohammed VI announced on Tuesday that Morocco is joining the candidacy of Spain and Portugal for the organization of the 2030 World Cup which will mark the centenary of the most popular sports competition. This announcement suggests that Ukraine, which had initially been associated with the candidacy of Spain and Portugal, is ousted from the project. “I am announcing before your assembly that the Kingdom of Morocco has decided, with Spain and Portugal, to present a joint candidacy to host the 2030 World Cup”, indicated the sovereign.
“A meeting between the Spanish football federation and the Portuguese football federation with the Moroccan federation must be held tomorrow (Wednesday) in Rwanda during the FIFA congress”, simply indicated the Spanish body questioned by AFP, without mention Ukraine. “The presidents will communicate to Kigali any news concerning the candidacy for the 2030 world”, she added. Spain and Portugal had already declared their candidacy for the 2030 World Cup in 2021 before integrating Ukraine in October 2022.
Centenary in 2030
At the last World Cup, in December in Qatar, the Moroccan team, the Atlas Lions, signed an exceptional course by reaching the semi-finals of the competition, a historic first for an African team and the Arab world. . The Football World Cup will celebrate its centenary in 2030, a century after the first edition organized and won by Uruguay, which formalized its joint candidacy with Argentina, Paraguay and Chile for 2030.
Five times unsuccessful candidate for the organization of the competition (in 1994, 1998, 2006, 2010 and 2026), Morocco hopes to become the second country on the continent, after South Africa in 2010, to host one of the events the most important on the planet. In 2018, the country, a football fanatic, had already announced that it wanted to apply to organize the 2030 World Cup. FIFA must designate in 2024 the host country or countries of the event, which will host 48 teams, against 32 in Qatar. The 2026 World Cup, also with 48 selections, will take place in the United States, Canada and Mexico.