Outside Casablanca, thousands of workers are building the 115,000-seat Grand Stade Hassan II, set to become the world’s biggest football stadium. Cranes tower over the vast construction site, with the tall stands already visible and dozens of bulldozers readying the land for new roads and a high-speed train link.
The project is the centrepiece of a $20bn programme to transform sports venues, transport and tourism infrastructure ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco will co-host with Spain and Portugal. So crucial is the tournament to Morocco’s prestige that football is also at the heart of Wednesday’s parliamentary election.
Morocco hopes the World Cup will cap off a string of economic achievements, which include building a strong tourism sector and a car industry that is the biggest automotive supplier to Europe. Government officials have said the tournament could boost annual growth by 1.7 per cent and create 100,000 jobs every year.
But even if Moroccans are football mad, this may not be enough to overcome popular misgivings about pouring billions into the tournament. Many see the preparations as a symbol of a “two-speed” economy that has created wide disparities between regions and classes, with benefits trickling unevenly to the 38mn population.
Youth unemployment was at 37 per cent in 2025, according to the IMF, and the World Bank says that the country has not been able to create jobs on the scale demanded by its growing working-age population.
Youth rallies, where protesters chanted “Healthcare first — we don’t want the World Cup”, swept Moroccan cities last year. The demonstrations, which were organised on social media, were sparked by the death of eight pregnant women in a public hospital in Agadir as a result of alleged medical neglect.
Much of Morocco’s investment has been concentrated in the north-western coastal area, which encompasses Rabat, Casablanca and Tangier, while inland and mountain areas have been neglected and public services like health and education remain poor, economists say. World Cup investments are seen by some as likely to widen that gap. In addition to the Stade Hassan II, Morocco is extensively rebuilding and upgrading five other stadiums along with airport expansions, roads, rail links, hotels and hospitals.
Critics cite as an example the high-speed rail link connecting Casablanca and Tangier with trains supplied by Alstom, the makers of France’s TGV, inaugurated in 2018.
Morocco is currently building a 430km extension at the cost of $5.7bn ahead of the World Cup that will link Kenitra, near Rabat, with Marrakech, as well as the new stadium with Casablanca’s airport.
Incursions by Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta reflect not just unemployment but alos dissatisfaction with wages that families cannot live on.
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