Potential 2026 WC Hosts (Update: Morocco Sole Challenger to CONCACAF Bid)

Look at the IOC members list.
https://www.olympic.org/fr/liste-des-membres-du-cio

 

IMHO WC Hosts should be:

1) Places with great atmosphere and huge soccer/footbal fan base, to celebrate the game - Celebration WC

or

2) Places that Fifa wants to spread the game into - missionary WC (US '94, SA '10, Qatar '22)

I rather see 2 celebration WC for every 1 missionary WC


Celebration WC that I want to see and go

Spain/Portugal, England, Italy/France, Germany and Argentina/Uruguay

Missionary WC

China and Australia


The problem with US/Canada/Mexico is that it isn't really a purê celebration WC (except for Mexino) nor a missionary WC (US got 94 for that) so I rather see England instead. One can argue that it is a mix (Celebration in Mexico, Missionary in Canad and Missionary 2.0/Celebration 0.5 in the US) - so if they devid groups into regions. All games of a group stay in the same region it can work and I hope my team gets to play its group stage in Mexico

Could Marroco be considered a celebration WC?

 

I looked at the wrong list - at the IOC board.

 

Costs will soar for countries that don't have the facilities.
Morocco can be argued have the facilities or are building them regardless.

Both bids are significantly different than South Africa / Qatar or even Russia / Brazil because most stadiums are already built, the roads are there, the transport system is there, the tourist facilities are there. The German World Cup did have a lot of investments, but this wasn't building white elephants like in Brazil / South Africa / Qatar (remains to be see with Russia).

I was actually surprised when I looked into the Morocco bid and how well it looked.

BTW Infantino also praised the Morocco bid, as a great bid. He's just being diplomatic on both bids.

 

Except FIFA is made up of individual actors acting mostly selfishly. FIFA (Blatter) wanted Qatar, but each member voted as their bribe dictated (probably thinking Qatar would never actually win).

 

There is argument about the South Africa stadiums. They are getting used.

 

Some of them. Not all. The ones in Port Elisabeth, Joburg, Cape Town, Durban -sure... But Rustenburg or Polokwane?

 

Actually, Blatter really wanted the USA, but others wanted Qatar.
As president of FIFA, he was forced to give it to whom got the most votes.

 

Yeah, I typo'ed. I meant to say Blatter wanted USA. Most of them didn't even look at the technical report.

 

I feel like I remember a quote Blatter said about the FBI investigations never would have happened if the US got the '22 WC. Or something along those lines. Hell if it had gone to any other country up for it, South Korea, Japan, US or Australia, it probably wouldn't have come to that.

 

For truth, in those days the technical report was just an "excuse" to give some high ranked FIFA officials, full paid trips round the world, and probably a mean of handling out some bribes as well.....

Not unlikely, that one of the reasons Infantino is happy with a Morrocco bid, apart from the North American one, has something of this in it, too ........

 

Morocco Wants to Host the World Cup. Just Don’t Ask for Any Details.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/...tion=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article

 

U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati says winning the 2026 World Cup hosting rights "will be a tough battle," and he's concerned external political forces will affect the bid. https://t.co/uibbCRRrzZ pic.twitter.com/8bFSOqajjM

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) January 18, 2018

Yep...Calling Africa a shithole and pissing off the middle East might have cost all of us. Some of you have to wake up and stop assuming this one's in the bag. Even with Mexico and Canada... far from it

 

This article seems at odds with some facts. Morocco's bid may be poorly prepped, but the have announced the flashy main stadium and have even started construction plans, regardless of whether they win the bid.

Pretty much all the stadiums are known.

There is obviously more to the bid than NYTimes says there is.

 

Le Grande Stade de Casablanca - the big main stadium has a project ready and is in preparation for construction which should start this year. 100,000 seater.

This is actually the last stadium Morocco needs to build. The remaining 9 are already built or will be finished this year. FIFA may require more stadiums, but like I said - there is more substance to Morocco's bid than NYTimes presented.

http://lionsdelatlas.ma/21287-le-grand-stade-de-casablanca-sera-construit-a-benslimane

 

Morocco only needs to pass the minimum technical requirements for the bid and the North American bid is in trouble.

 

Mexico City is the first city to deliver 2026 FIFA World Cup requirements.










http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/mexico-city-first-city-deliver-2026-world-cup-requirements

 

The US is probably too involved in shutting down the government to care...

 

Agree.

Blatter made some interesting revelations about 2022 World Cup.

As I have always said, the main issue for the 2026 World Cup will be to restablish FIFA's credibility and image.

 

More to the inner story:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewb...ful-game-the-ugly-circus-part-1/#138974fa160d

• The problem now also lies in geopolitics, with England, Belgium and Holland seeking legal advice on whether to pursue compensation after Sepp alluded to an agreement in 2010 with Russian outlet TASS that the World Cup would go to Russia in 2018 and the USA in 2022. Sharing the World Cup stage spotlight between the two biggest political powers is the unfortunate result of the politicization of sport and possibly propaganda. This bilateral agreement to share the World Cup between world powers was stymied though by Qatari influence and French ‘middle manning’. As Sepp admitted, “everything was good until the moment when Sarkozy came in a meeting with the present ruler of Qatar, (Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani). And at a lunch afterwards with Mr. Platini he said it would be good to go to Qatar. There was an election by secret ballot. Four votes from Europe went away from the USA … If the USA was given the World Cup, we would only speak about the wonderful World Cup 2018 in Russia and we would not speak about any problems at FIFA.”

Despite the outrage over Russia and Qatar, it would be fair to point out that the US played the same backstage dealings as the other 2. But because of French president Sarkozy , the head of the UEFA Michel Platini and Qatari ruler, the US got screwed or outmaneuvered by Qatar.

I think there's some truth to Blatter saying that the FBI crackdown on FIFA could have been caused by that. Maybe... I don't know

Another reason why I say that the 2026 WC is far from being won is that too many people assume that UEFA will automatically favor a North American bid, which is far from being accurate. So we'll see if Morocco's bid meets the minimum requirement. I think with Trump comments, we can forget about the African block, that's a potential 55 vote deficit + middle-Eastern nations.

 

People are exaggerating when they talk Trump's influence on CAF members' votes. Those are most corrupt organizations under FIFA's umbrella, guys that will be voting are presidents of those organizations - they would go over any type of insult if they had any benefit from it so they will vote for those who offer the most.

I'd love to see Morocco host it, especially because they had so many bids in last few decades.

 

That Casablanca stadium posted here, is an old concept art. The new one is not known yet.
There will be 14 stadiums, 6 will be modernized and 8 new ones.
One in Tetouan is already under construction. The designs for Oujda and Hoceima have been chosen and the ground purchased. There are also rumors that Qatar might send some of the removable stands from their stadiums.
Highways and conventional rail lines between the big cities are all ready.
HSR between Tangier and Casablanca will be ready by the end of this year and expansion to Agadir could be ready for the WC.
The transportation in cities is still a problem, especialy in Casablanca.

 

No different than in the US or Mexico, given they both sabotaged their own public transport systems and are only now trying to rebuild them. Poorly I must add. I doubt Morocco is much worse off in this respect than those shith@le countries.

EDIT: OK, Mexico City actually has a decent metro system. So only the US is a shith@le country in this regard.

 

Subways don't exist in Morocco and only two cities have trams.
But, we will probably see a lot of electric busses in moroccan cities by 2026. BYD is currently constructing an e-bus and monorail plant in Tangier.

 

And you expect to get a lot of subways in the US?
Their public transport system - save for New York and California lately - is like from the XIXth century. Shith@le I tell you.

Las Vegas? Shith@le.
Phoenix? Less shith@le.
Salt Lake City? Worse than a shith@le.
Kansas City? Look above.
Nashville? Shith@le.
Dallas? Mostly a shith@le, but DART is passable.
Houston? OK, making strides to no longer be a shith@le.
And so on...
I guess the metro systems have expanded, but the Americans love for cars and illogical disregard for public transport still mean that public transport, even when implemented, is ions behind what is available in Europe. The difference in Europe is that if you travel blind to any European city you know you will manage without a car. When you travel anywhere in the US you need to check just how much of a shith@le the city is.

Even if Morocco has poor public transport at least you can travel from Europe to Morocco by car or within Morocco by car. In the US / Mexico / Kanada you have to a) fly everywhere; b) rent a car everywhere. Its just such a drag on the average fan budget that Morcco just makes so much more sense.