World Cup Bid: Morocco Unveils 12 Cities to Host Games

In case Morocco won the bid to host the 2026 World Cup bid, the games will take place in the following cities: Casablanca, Marrakesh, Rabat, Fez, Oujda, Tangier, Tetuan, Nador, Meknès, El Jadida, Agadir and Ouarzazate, Sports Minister Rachid Talbi ALami said.

The list includes two cities that have so far never hosted international games: Nador and Ouarzazate. While Ouarzazat is already a tourist destination with a network of hotels and attraction sites from cinema studios, oases and desert sceneries in addition to the world’s largest solar plant, much work needs to be done in the northern city of Nador to build the required hotel infrastructure, besides international stadiums.

All these cities are close to airports and connected by a rail network and highways making it easy for fans and teams to move between cities.

Morocco’s proximity to Europe is also playing in its favor as most voters from the old continent will consider making things easy for their fans and teams alike instead of taking the transcontinental and more expensive flights to America.

With its 8 world class football stadiums, Morocco still needs more stadiums to boost its chances of hosting the World Cup tournament. In terms of infrastructure, Morocco is clearly outpaced by its North American challengers where the US by itself has more than 31 international football stadiums not to count the numerous training stadiums across the country. To fill in the gap in terms of stadiums, Morocco has promised to establish demountable stadiums with 50,000 seat capacity up to FIFA standards.

Morocco is making its fifth bid to host the 2026 World Cup, the first edition to involve 48 teams and 80 games packed into 32 competition days.

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