Morocco Pledges To Build Seven New Stadiums In Bid To Host 2026 World Cup

14 February 2018

Morocco has pledged to build seven new stadiums if the north African country wins the bid to host the 2026 World Cup, China's Xinhua news agency reported quoting the local media on Tuesday.

They comprise six stadiums with 45,000 seat capacity and a 100,000-seat stadium in the country's largest city of Casablanca, the Moroccan Sports and Youth Minister Rachid Talbi Alami said in an interview with Medias24.com news site.

The seven new stadiums would add to the existing five as well as to two others under construction in the northern city of Tetouan and the eastern city of Oujda respectively.

Rachid said the construction of the new stadiums and renovation of the old ones would cost between US$800 million and US$1 billion.

The stadiums will be located in 12 cities, namely Casablanca, Marrakesh, Rabat, Fez, Oujda, Tangier, Tetouan, Nador, Meknes, El Jadida, Agadir and Ouarzazate.

The team tasked with the Morocco 2026 bid must submit their books, containing all plans for stadiums, infrastructure, transport and so forth by March 16.

In Aug 2017, Morocco submitted their bid to host the 2026 World Cup to FIFA, thus positioning them as the sole challenger to the joint bid from Canada, Mexico and the US.

This is Morocco's fifth bid to host the World Cup, after unsuccessful bids for the 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2010 editions of the tournament.

 

Source: bernama.com