April 12 – The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has given a significant boost to the joint Morocco, Spain and Portugal bid for the 2030 World Cup.
CAF’s Executive Committee has released a statement that it “unanimously agreed on behalf of African Football to support Morocco’s FIFA World Cup 2030 bid”.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe said: “The unanimous decision that was taken by the CAF Executive Committee to support Morocco’s bid to host the FIFA World Cup 2030 means that the bid of Morocco is now the bid of the African Continent.
“We are now focusing on ensuring that Africa once more hosts the FIFA World Cup and are committed to working together with all Football National Associations and Confederations to make this happen.”
With UEFA also putting its weight behind the Iberian and Moroccan bid, the prospects for the four-nation Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay bid look bleak. FIFA has 211 members who will vote for the hosts in September 2024. If UEFA’s 55 members and CAF’s 54 members all follow their confederation lead then the 106 votes needed to win look secure.
Morocco has previously made failed attempts to stage the World Cup – in 1994, 1998, 2006, 2010 and 2026. It announced its plans to join the Spain and Portugal joint bid at the FIFA Congress in Kigali, Rwanda, last month.
At the World Cup in Qatar last year the Moroccans pushed themselves into the world spotlight when they became the first African nation to reach the World Cup semi-finals. In February Morocco successfully hosted the Club World Cup as they continued to establish their credentials as a global footballing nation.
In early 2022 year there was some speculation that the Moroccans may line up alongside Algeria and Tunisia for 2030. Joining Spain and Portugal in an inter-continental bid with historical cultural ties is looking like a much more compelling argument to counter the emotional pull of the South American pitch – 2030 being the centenary of the first ever World Cup, staged in Uruguay.
It had also been mooted that Saudi Arabia could launch a joint bid for 2030 hosting with Egypt and Greece. As intriguing as a World Cup would be across those three nations, the noise around their potential collaboration has been pretty much silenced.
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