Spain has ruled out the possibility of allowing Morocco to host the final of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, insisting that the tournament’s biggest match will take place on Spanish soil.
The President of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Rafael Louzan, said on Saturday that there was no plan to withdraw Spain’s position as the preferred host of the final, Naija News reports.
Spain is co-hosting the 2030 World Cup with Portugal and Morocco, but the final venue will not be decided until 2028.
Spain is pushing for Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu Stadium to host the final, while Morocco has proposed the 115,000-capacity Hassan II Stadium, which is under construction in Benslimane, near Casablanca.
Portugal, on the other hand, does not currently have a stadium considered suitable for the final.
Speaking at a conference at the RFEF’s Ciudad del Futbol headquarters outside Madrid, Louzan said Spain remained confident of hosting the showpiece match.
“There is no other plan than for the final to be held in Spain,” he said.
He added that he was not considering withdrawing Spain’s interest in hosting the final because the possibility of the country losing the hosting right was not being considered.
Louzan’s comments followed a statement by the leader of Spain’s right-wing People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo.
During a television interview on November 5, Feijoo said he would push for Spain to withdraw from the World Cup hosting arrangement if he became prime minister after the November 29 general election and Morocco was awarded the final.
However, Louzan described the possibility as hypothetical, insisting that there was no reason for Spain to consider such a move.
He also argued that the final should be hosted in Europe, citing FIFA’s tradition of rotating the continent responsible for staging the tournament’s final.
Meanwhile, Louzan disclosed that a team of FIFA technical experts visited several Spanish stadiums last week to assess facilities seeking to host matches during the 2030 tournament.
The visit forms part of preparations ahead of the final decision on the stadiums that will be selected for the competition.
