¿Un Mundial de fútbol en Marruecos?

The world's most important football competition could have Morocco among its next destinations. With the 2022 and 2026 World Cups assigned to Qatar and North America - the United States, Canada and Mexico - respectively, the 2030 World Cup presents itself as a new opportunity for all aspirants wishing to host the FIFA World Cup. Among them is Morocco which, after seeing its joint bid with Spain and Portugal - these two will go together - thwarted, has decided to bid on its own to host the top international competition, which, if successful, would be the second World Cup in history to be held in Africa.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino assured in an interview with MBC that "it is possible to organise the World Cup in an Arab country, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which managed to organise the CAN (African Cup of Nations), and Morocco, which presented a dossier to host the world event". Infantino himself has welcomed Qatar's successful hosting of the Arab Cup. However, the World Cup, also run by the Qataris, has been surrounded by controversy due to the more than 6,500 lives claimed by the construction of infrastructure, the violation of human rights and the alteration of the calendar of all club competitions.

Morocco will face, in addition to Spain and Portugal, the joint bids of Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay, and the two yet to be confirmed bids of England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; and Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Serbia. There were also rumours of possible bids from Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, and China, South Korea, North Korea and Japan. All of these show the trend that will start in 2026 with a joint organisation not too common in World Cups, as it is in competitions such as the EURO.

The 2030 World Cup will not be the first occasion on which the Alawi kingdom intends to host the World Cup. For the 2010 World Cup, which was finally hosted by South Africa and in which Spain won its first and so far only star, Rabat submitted a bid in which it obtained 10 votes, just four behind South Africa. The podium was completed by Egypt, which did not obtain any votes, and with whom there had been speculation that Morocco might try to organise the 2030 World Cup, which, as far as is known so far, it intends to organise independently.