After more than 90 minutes of tense football in this month’s AFCON final between Senegal and hosts Morocco, the game descended into chaos after the referee awarded Morocco a penalty kick deep into stoppage time.
Senegal, already furious after they had had a goal disallowed just a few minutes previously, stormed off the pitch and brought the match to a standstill for around 15 minutes. When play eventually resumed, Morocco’s Brahim Diaz missed the spot kick, with Senegal then going on to win the tournament after a stoppage time winner from midfielder Pape Gueye.
The awarding of the penalty and Senegal’s subsequent reaction has led to the AFCON final being mired in controversy and confusion. Morocco’s head coach Walid Regragui said that “the image we’ve given of Africa is shameful” and that the actions of Senegal’s boss Pape Thiaw in ordering his team off the pitch did “not honour Africa”.
The day after the final, Morocco’s football federation said that it would be pursuing legal action over Senegal’s decision to leave the pitch, arguing that “this situation had a significant impact on the normal course of the match and on the players’ performance.”
Hosting success
The chaotic end to the tournament has somewhat overshadowed what had been a successful AFCON from a logistical perspective, with the Moroccan authorities having put significant emphasis on the smooth running of the competition as they prepare to co-host the 2030 World Cup with European neighbours Spain and Portugal.
Raef Kawar, partner at Rabat-based investment banking firm EuraBridge, tells African Business that “AFCON was a key stress test for the 2030 World Cup… the tournament showed that we were able to meet the high standards people expect.”
There were a couple of minor hiccups which the authorities will aim to address before 2030. In Marrakech, for example, the stadium is located out of town with access by only one road and no rail services, leading to disorderly scenes as fans tried to navigate their way back into the city. In the run up to the tournament, the online ticketing system was also unable to cope with demand, leading to crashes and delays.
However, on the whole, Morocco’s physical and digital infrastructure held up strongly. Indeed, a key priority for the Moroccan government in the run up to this year’s AFCON and then the World Cup has been significantly upgrading the North African country’s transport infrastructure.
Since 2018 Morocco has been building a high-speed railway, as part of a broader $37bn rail investment strategy, to connect key economic hubs such as Casablanca and Rabat. The high-speed “Al-Boraq” service already runs from Rabat to Tanger and will be extended through Casablanca and into Marrakech by 2030, connecting Morocco’s major tourism and business centres.
Meanwhile, the government is also working on ambitious plans to expand the Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca through a $1.5bn project that aims to see the airport serve 12.5mn passengers by the end of 2026 and over 20mn by 2030.
The airport announced at the end of December that it had served more than 11m passengers in a year for the first time as a result of the AFCON-related influx, with the national carrier Royal Air Maroc playing a vital role in increasing the number of flights to other African nations and to European cities with large African diasporas.
While there remains a significant amount of work to do before the 2030 World Cup, Morocco’s minister for industry and trade Ryad Mezzour has argued that “in just twenty-four months [prior to AFCON], Morocco has gained the equivalent of ten years of infrastructure development.”
Infrastructure holds up
AFCON demonstrated that the majority of the sports infrastructure required for the World Cup has also been completed. For the first time at an AFCON, all the teams had their own dedicated “base camps” at five-star hotels with their own private training facilities.
The recent opening of the 70,000 seat Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat means that Morocco has now successfully used five of the six stadiums it plans to use for the World Cup, with the final stadium being the under-construction Stade Hassan II in Casablanca. With a planned capacity of 115,000, this will be the biggest stadium in the world and Morocco hopes that it will be chosen to host the World Cup Final, although it faces competition from Madrid’s Bernabéu.
Kawar notes that “so much has been achieved in just a matter of months: stadium-wise, for one, but also the highways have been expanded; a new train station has been built in Rabat, and everything has been done in a very fast and high-quality way.”
Kawar argues that the main area which needs to be addressed before 2030 is upgrading the country’s hospitality infrastructure, He estimates that Morocco requires another 150,000 hotel beds in order to cope with the tourist influx during the World Cup year.
“We need to convince investors to build new hotels or develop existing sites,” he tells African Business. “This is where it is important for us as bankers to play a role: we are offering 0% loans to encourage investors to come and invest in Morocco and renovate or build hotels to bring them up to international standards and attract consumers from around the world.”
Next up: World Cup
A successful AFCON – and even more so a successful World Cup in 2030 – is seen as vitally important by the Moroccan government, which views these sporting spectacles as a way to position itself as a modern, global economy and a continental leader in culture, business, and trade.
Lukas Aubin, head of the sports and geopolitics programme at at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs, has written that AFCON was “an opportunity [for Morocco] to assert itself on the African and global stage, to consolidate its image as a stable and prosperous hub, while stimulating its domestic economy.
“This massive investment in sports diplomacy lies at the heart of Morocco’s geopolitical and regional ambitions under King Mohammed VI,” he added.
Despite the chaotic scenes during the final – and despite Morocco’s painful loss – there seems to be a significant degree of optimism within the country around its hosting of the AFCON tournament, which Aubin says they had hoped would be “the most accomplished AFCON in history”.
Indeed, reflecting on the tournament, Mezzour said that “we are extremely proud to have demonstrated that Morocco can host a global-scale event.”
Much hinges on 2030 for Morocco. The kingdom hopes to use the World Cup as an opportunity to cement its status as a regional leader within Africa and the Arab world, something that would in turn help secure long-term economic and geopolitical gains.
Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Morocco’s minister for digital transformation and administrative reform, previously told African Business that the country wants to be recognised as equally economically sophisticated as its 2030 World Cup co-hosts.
“We want and need to be compliant with Spain and Portugal,” she said. “Their digital and physical infrastructure is already advanced and works very well… we cannot bring supporters to Morocco without all this in place.”
While there remains work to be done to achieve this, the recent AFCON tournament suggests that Morocco is well positioned to fulfil its ambitions for 2030. Kawar notes that “we are on the right track for 2030 – we just need to keep going: managing costs, managing spending, and continuing to execute projects well.”