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    World Cup 2026

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44338953

    Do FIFA not read the news?

    In what sense is the USA not "high risk" for people of colour?

    #2
    The report seems to use "high risk" in reference to lack of stadia and infrastructure.

    How many countries can realistically host a 48 team World Cup? Not Morocco, I would think.

    Comment


      #3
      I feel sorry for Morocco as perennial failed bidders and succesful hosts of the World Club Cup but surely this is a stretch for them. Especially for a 48 team finals.

      Comment


        #4
        I was in Casablanca two weeks ago.

        It wasn't great, expensive and food wasn't special (too many restaurants trying to imitate French Cuisine).

        The people were great and I watched the FA Cup final with Arabic commentary which made the trip worth it.
        They had a mosque about the size of a football stadium.

        They had a brand new tram system which didn't seem warranted with all the other infrastructure deficiencies i could see.

        However, I would like them to win it just to piss off the Americans.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
          I was in Casablanca two weeks ago.

          It wasn't great, expensive and food wasn't special (too many restaurants trying to imitate French Cuisine).

          The people were great and I watched the FA Cup final with Arabic commentary which made the trip worth it.
          They had a mosque about the size of a football stadium.

          They had a brand new tram system which didn't seem warranted with all the other infrastructure deficiencies i could see.

          However, I would like them to win it just to piss off the Americans.
          It would be better to hold the World Cup in Europe or perhaps Japan/Korea again. (Or, unless FIFA can be reformed not have it at all) The infrastructure is already in place and its politically less fraught, but neither of those are options for 2026 right now. So, of the options on the table, North America is the best by far.

          Having it in Morocco is bad for Morocco. It will cost them money they don't have for stadiums they don't need. Having it here will not cost us much money that isn't already spent, and having a whole lot of friendly foreigners visit major US cities can only help reduce xenophobia in the US, which benefits everyone.

          Americans won't be pissed off if it's in Morocco instead, except for the kind of Americans that are the only thing standing between Trump and World War III, so be careful what you wish for. The venn diagram overlap between Americans who hate soccer and Trumpistas is not quite a perfect circle, but it's close. And if the event isn't awarded to North America, Trump and his people will use it as an excuse to just bash soccer and foreigners and the French (why would it be about the French? Why is it ever?), so don't think this would be a blow to them.

          Everyone should be boycotting FIFA, but it is good for the planet for Americans to care about soccer. Anything that makes us less insular and exceptionalist makes the US less of a threat and soccer does that, albeit it a small way. American soccer fans are not, in general, like England fans. Having the World Cup here would only help as far as that goes and we need all the help we can get.

          In what sense is the USA not "high risk" for people of colour?


          Well, many of the games will be in Canada or Mexico so there's that.

          While the US is high-risk for people of color by the standards of the industrialized world and basic moral decency, we're probably mid to low risk compared to the rest of the world, simply because so much of the rest of the world is higher risk for people of all colors. Last I checked we have the 99th highest murder rate. Our major stadiums and the areas around them are increasingly secured like Fort Knox during major events, so fans wouldn't have too much to worry about except long security lines, unreasonable (though universal) searches, etc.

          Of course, if recent Super Bowls are anything to go on, all the games will lead to complete lockdown of the city around each stadium and only allow access to wealthy ticketholders and the whole thing will be a boondoggle for the host cities with no benefit to anyone except people with connections to sponsors and the blazerati. But in a 48 team world cup, I suspect demand for a lot of games won't be that high and there will be lots of empty seats. Like many recent Olympics.

          And, it's worth noting that for the purposes of this issue, there is no place called "America" and there is no such entity called "American police." The level of crime, racism, and police violence against minorities varies widely from town to town and police department to police department (and it doesn't, apparently, correlate to the overall level of violent crime in the city). The places that aren't full of trigger-happy racists don't make the news. I cannot, however, promise that the police in cities that will host world cup games all fall in the latter category, so we'll just have to see what the final list is. A lot can change in eight years too.

          There may also be something to be said for putting an ocean between the World Cup and European hooligans. I don't know how hard it is to get from Spain to Morocco, but I imagine it would be harder for the known troublemakers to get into North America than to get across the Mediterranean. I can't prove that.

          Comment


            #6
            Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
            The report seems to use "high risk" in reference to lack of stadia and infrastructure.

            How many countries can realistically host a 48 team World Cup? Not Morocco, I would think.
            A 48 team world cup is a terrible idea.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by jeanmid View Post
              A 48 team world cup is a terrible idea.
              Indeed it is, but there doesn't seem to be any stopping it now.

              Comment


                #8
                It would be better to hold the World Cup in Europe or perhaps Japan/Korea again. (Or, unless FIFA can be reformed not have it at all) The infrastructure is already in place and its politically less fraught, but neither of those are options for 2026 right now
                So a world of Football without the world cup, and you call that positive reform. Please explain your thinking?

                So, of the options on the table, North America is the best by far.
                Best for Whom sir?

                Having it in Morocco is bad for Morocco. It will cost them money they don't have for stadiums they don't need
                You could say that for most major international tournaments of the last 40 odd years (including london 2012). Costs can be minimalised with innovative design for football stadiums that can allow them to remain with smaller capacities or as multi-use stadiums after the tournament end.

                Having it here will not cost us much money that isn't already spent
                There are still plenty of costs associated which looking at the funding model in the US is normally paid for by the host city councils (which are pretty cash strapped)
                American football pitches are narrower than Soccer pitches and some will need Grass surfaces put in (like they did in 94).
                And if specialised Soccer stadiums are built, that is a cost in itself.

                And having a whole lot of friendly foreigners visit major US cities can only help reduce xenophobia in the US, which benefits everyone.
                Do you really believe that, or are the foreigners your are alluding to white Europeans?

                Americans won't be pissed off if it's in Morocco instead, except for the kind of Americans that are the only thing standing between Trump and World War III, so be careful what you wish for
                Not sure about that, Americans don't take defeat well at all, even for a sport that the majority of the population do not give a monkeys about. The last time they were not awarded a World Cup they expected, they leveraged their legal system to enact reguime change within FIFA.
                That was under Obama, imagine what it will be like under the "win, win win until we get tired of winning" brigade.
                Bear in mind the threat Trump made for any country that plans to vote against the USA.

                The venn diagram overlap between Americans who hate soccer and Trumpistas is not quite a perfect circle, but it's close. And if the event isn't awarded to North America, Trump and his people will use it as an excuse to just bash soccer and foreigners and the French (why would it be about the French? Why is it ever?), so don't think this would be a blow to them.
                So do you suggest we just give it to the USA to placate the bigots, they are an insatiable bunch and will find some other reason to bash foreigners, currently its Steel.

                Everyone should be boycotting FIFA,
                Still, The Blatter/Warner/African Heagemony has been broken, FIFA is being run by europeans and you are still complaining?

                but it is good for the planet for Americans to care about soccer. Anything that makes us less insular and exceptionalist makes the US less of a threat and soccer does that, albeit it a small way. American soccer fans are not, in general, like England fans. Having the World Cup here would only help as far as that goes and we need all the help we can get.
                Having the World cup in 94 didn't make the USA less aggressive abroad.

                In what sense is the USA not "high risk" for people of colour?

                Well, many of the games will be in Canada or Mexico so there's that.
                Quite alot of racism in Canada, so much so, they are exporting them to the US

                While the US is high-risk for people of color by the standards of the industrialized world and basic moral decency, we're probably mid to low risk compared to the rest of the world, simply because so much of the rest of the world is higher risk for people of all colors.
                Dunno, your less likely to be shot dead randomly by police in any country in Africa (war zones and during elections excepted) than you are in the united States.
                Also, people don't walk into schools and start shooting indescrimiately)

                Our major stadiums and the areas around them are increasingly secured like Fort Knox during major events, so fans wouldn't have too much to worry about except long security lines, unreasonable (though universal) searches, etc.
                I think the danger for travelling fans is doing regular stuff away from the stadiums like driving, going to starbucks to use the toilet or wait for friends, going clothes shopping or maybe bar-b-q -ing their wierd foreign meat in a local park without being harrassed, by the locals, thrown out by store owners or being shot by local police.

                Of course, if recent Super Bowls are anything to go on, all the games will lead to complete lockdown of the city around each stadium and only allow access to wealthy ticketholders and the whole thing will be a boondoggle for the host cities with no benefit to anyone except people with connections to sponsors and the blazerati. But in a 48 team world cup, I suspect demand for a lot of games won't be that high and there will be lots of empty seats. Like many recent Olympics.
                To be fair, that's what will happen regardless of where it is being held, However, to be fair 2010 in South Africa had alot of matches that were close to full (at least the half dozen or so I attended) others on here can speak of other tournaments.

                And, it's worth noting that for the purposes of this issue, there is no place called "America" and there is no such entity called "American police." The level of crime, racism, and police violence against minorities varies widely from town to town and police department to police department (and it doesn't, apparently, correlate to the overall level of violent crime in the city). The places that aren't full of trigger-happy racists don't make the news. I cannot, however, promise that the police in cities that will host world cup games all fall in the latter category, so we'll just have to see what the final list is. A lot can change in eight years too.
                That maybe so, but the incidents of police brutality seems to cover all aspects of your police system from small town sheriffs to big city police departments. And it doesnt help when police officers are fired for such misconduct can just get a job another police department easily.

                There may also be something to be said for putting an ocean between the World Cup and European hooligans. I don't know how hard it is to get from Spain to Morocco, but I imagine it would be harder for the known troublemakers to get into North America than to get across the Mediterranean. I can't prove that.
                Football hooligans only try that shit in civilised countries where they know the local police are a bit more lenient (i.e Western Europe). The would either not travel or be on their best behaviour in countries where police are percieved to be trigger happy (USA) or less accountable to judicial review (Africa).

                The South African and Brazilian world cup was hooligan free to my knowledge.

                Comment


                  #9
                  American football pitches are narrower than Soccer pitches and some will need Grass surfaces put in (like they did in 94).
                  And if specialised Soccer stadiums are built, that is a cost in itself.
                  I don't really disagree with your tone of "America doesn't need to have the World Cup for its own good, because fuck that"*, but every NFL stadium in the US has been built to accommodate soccer since about 1988. America wouldn't have to change a seat in any individual stadium. Not one.

                  They'd drop in grass pitches, but I don't remember anybody complaining about the Silverdome pitch in 1994.


                  * I mean, either the World Cup is held in my home country or it's held relatively close to my house with a likely very good crack between European and African fans. I win either way.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Not sure about that, Americans don't take defeat well at all, even for a sport that the majority of the population do not give a monkeys about. The last time they were not awarded a World Cup they expected, they leveraged their legal system to enact reguime change within FIFA.
                    That was under Obama, imagine what it will be like under the "win, win win until we get tired of winning" brigade.
                    Bear in mind the threat Trump made for any country that plans to vote against the USA.
                    So nothing to do with the financial corruption at FIFA then?

                    Comment


                      #11
                      There was financial corruption at fifa before 2015. The US got monumentally pissed off at bidding for a tournament, and to see them go to Russia and Qatar. Though you've got to suspect that they were going to get around to Dealing with concacaf eventually. Chuck Blazer seemed to spend every waking moment trying to make Concacaf look more and more inviting to the FBI.

                      I'm not sure what a country with a GDP per capita of less than $3000 is doing bidding for a world cup. Morocco has literally thousands of better uses for that money.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        So a world of Football without the world cup, and you call that positive reform. Please explain your thinking?[
                        The vast corruption of FIFA has been well-documented. I don't need to reexplain that. And insofar as national football teams contribute to nationalism, xenophobia, and us-vs-them mentality, it's not helpful. And the World Cup isn't even the highest level of football any more. So what purpose does it serve other than to make a few people a lot of money, largely at the expense of the public sector of the countries that host it? The onus needs to be on those who insist the World Cup is good to prove their position.

                        I recognize that this is not the position I held 10 or 20 years ago. But it's the one I hold now. I can envision ways in which national team sports can be a positive social force and positive for the games themselves and perhaps they were at some point in the past. But, at least in all the countries I know much about, they bring out more ugliness than anything positive.

                        Best for Whom sir?
                        Best for the players, the fans and, most importantly, the people of countries like Morocco who cannot afford to spend their limited resources on a boondoggle like the World Cup.

                        Again, I just mean best of the options available. Nobody else is in the running for 2026.

                        You could say that for most major international tournaments of the last 40 odd years (including london 2012). Costs can be minimalised with innovative design for football stadiums that can allow them to remain with smaller capacities or as multi-use stadiums after the tournament end.
                        Perhaps. But you know what saves even more money? Not building new facilities at all.

                        There are still plenty of costs associated which looking at the funding model in the US is normally paid for by the host city councils (which are pretty cash strapped)
                        American football pitches are narrower than Soccer pitches and some will need Grass surfaces put in (like they did in 94).
                        And if specialised Soccer stadiums are built, that is a cost in itself.
                        American football stadiums are pretty much all built to accommodate soccer now.

                        Do you really believe that, or are the foreigners your are alluding to white Europeans?
                        I believe that, and I'm not assuming they're all white.

                        Not sure about that, Americans don't take defeat well at all, even for a sport that the majority of the population do not give a monkeys about. The last time they were not awarded a World Cup they expected, they leveraged their legal system to enact reguime change within FIFA.
                        That was under Obama, imagine what it will be like under the "win, win win until we get tired of winning" brigade.
                        Because FIFA is hopelessly corrupt and the process that gave the event to Qatar was openly bent. Leveraging the legal system was/is the right thing to do. It's what normal people do in response to corruption. It's not just sour grapes. They should have done it long before now, of course, but the justice department wasn't willing to spend the resources on it until the US had a tangible financial reason to do so, I suppose.

                        Bear in mind the threat Trump made for any country that plans to vote against the USA.
                        I'm not aware of what he said. I don't listen to him, but his foreign policy is already so racist and stupid, it's unlikely that this situation could make it any worse.

                        So do you suggest we just give it to the USA to placate the bigots, they are an insatiable bunch and will find some other reason to bash foreigners, currently its Steel.
                        No. But your logic is to keep the event out of North America just to piss off the bigots who, as I said, will be more pissed off by having it here than not. I'm simply countering that particular canard. I don't think FIFA "owes" it to the US or anything like that. Just that, if there's going to be a World Cup - especially if there's going to be one with 48 fucking teams - than North America is the least bad option.

                        Still, The Blatter/Warner/African Heagemony has been broken, FIFA is being run by europeans and you are still complaining?
                        Russia is hosting this World Cup and Qatar is still hosting the next one. I do not see evidence that FIFA is really reformed. It doesn't matter the nationality or race of the people running it. In my view, corrupt blazers are a race apart, who have no nationality or interest other than their own wallets.

                        Having the World cup in 94 didn't make the USA less aggressive abroad.
                        Cultural change is slow. But every little bit helps.

                        Quite alot of racism in Canada, so much so, they are exporting them to the US
                        What?

                        Dunno, your less likely to be shot dead randomly by police in any country in Africa (war zones and during elections excepted) than you are in the united States.
                        Those two exceptions are doing a lot of work there.


                        Also, people don't walk into schools and start shooting indescrimiately)
                        Fair point. Not likely to happen at the World Cup, though.


                        I think the danger for travelling fans is doing regular stuff away from the stadiums like driving, going to starbucks to use the toilet or wait for friends, going clothes shopping or maybe bar-b-q -ing their wierd foreign meat in a local park without being harrassed, by the locals, thrown out by store owners or being shot by local police.
                        I think you're vastly overstating those risks on a day to day basis. Those things happen to just about every person of color sooner or later, and the cumulative impact adds up, of course. And, of course, sometimes the results are fatal. And I'm sure that if the World Cup comes here, there will be at least one newsmaking incident of racism toward a visiting fan. With hundreds of thousands of people coming, it's bound to happen. But the overwhelming majority won't have any problems and will probably find America to be far more welcoming and friendly then they expect.

                        And Morocco brings its own health and safety concerns, though it is relatively safe by all accounts. It's certainly a better choice than Qatar or Russia, but that's not saying much.


                        To be fair, that's what will happen regardless of where it is being held, However, to be fair 2010 in South Africa had alot of matches that were close to full (at least the half dozen or so I attended) others on here can speak of other tournaments.
                        Yes, if they expand it to 48 teams, there will be lots of empty seats, regardless.

                        That maybe so, but the incidents of police brutality seems to cover all aspects of your police system from small town sheriffs to big city police departments. And it doesnt help when police officers are fired for such misconduct can just get a job another police department easily.
                        There is no "police system." That's a big part of the problem.


                        Football hooligans only try that shit in civilised countries where they know the local police are a bit more lenient (i.e Western Europe). The would either not travel or be on their best behaviour in countries where police are percieved to be trigger happy (USA) or less accountable to judicial review (Africa).
                        I'll take your word for it. But US cities would not be lenient toward hooligans during a major event.

                        The South African and Brazilian world cup was hooligan free to my knowledge.
                        So was USA 94, as far as I recall. But then, England weren't in it, which seems to be a factor.
                        Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 06-06-2018, 16:41.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          I don't recall hooliganism at a world cup since 98. There's been some nastiness at the Euros though, with England fans blighting 2000 and 04, and Russian fans blighting 12 and 16.

                          I'm beginning to think these next 3 World cups could kill it off. Combined with the messing around of the Euros, international football just has the look of the British empire circa 1925.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Yeah, I guess it's the Euros that have had more problems, and from that I'm extrapolating that the problem is mostly from Europe and/or finds it easier to cause trouble in Europe. But maybe it's not just the location but something about the event itself. Less security? More appealing to hooligans?

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I recently re-read Going Oriental, by Mark Perryman and various other contributors. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course, but it's still fascinating to look back and think how optimistic and positive so many people seemed at the time: the tone of the book is generally that hooliganism is being confined to the past, the 2002 World Cup marked a sea change in the behaviour of England supporters and that football was on the verge of changing, massively and irreversibly, but essentially for the better.

                              Well, they got the bit about 'change' right.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Isn't Morocco run by an a**hole king with crazy bunch of say?

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  He's quite the reformist actually by Arab standards. Although you can still be imprisoned for criticising him so watch your gob if you go to Agadir, PPV.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    I know Tunisia has done some great things in reforming, Morocco less known to me. We have several hundred street kids from Morocco in Stockholm and Gothenburg, who have fled the country.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      On paper he only has the same consitutional powers as our queen (appointment and dismissal of prime ministers, power over the judiciary and military affairs, right to intervene in sentencing). Of course Her Maj never uses any of her powers (well, at least not openly...). Not sure to what extent he does.
                                      Last edited by Rogin the Armchair fan; 07-06-2018, 10:41.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                        But in a 48 team world cup, I suspect demand for a lot of games won't be that high and there will be lots of empty seats.
                                        I don't see empty seats being too much of an issue if the World Cup is held in the U.S. Due to MLS, there are currently 15 "soccer-specific" stadiums dotted around the country, with more being built, and each has a capacity of between 18,000 and 26,000. So, I'd imagine that a game like Uganda vs Bolivia (for example) would be at a venue like Red Bull Arena (25,000 capacity) rather than Giants Stadium (80,000).

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Limey View Post
                                          I don't see empty seats being too much of an issue if the World Cup is held in the U.S. Due to MLS, there are currently 15 "soccer-specific" stadiums dotted around the country, with more being built, and each has a capacity of between 18,000 and 26,000. So, I'd imagine that a game like Uganda vs Bolivia (for example) would be at a venue like Red Bull Arena (25,000 capacity) rather than Giants Stadium (80,000).
                                          That is a great idea, but from what I understand, the bid is all NFL stadiums, plus the ones in Mexico, Edmonton's CFL stadium, and augmented MLS/CFL stadiums in Montreal and Toronto. None of the MLS SSS are on the list, even though they'd be ideal for many of the matches. Maybe they'll adjust the plan in the future.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            I don’t have time to develop now but if anyone is interested, just give us a shout and I'll develop a little more on this but basically don’t be fooled by welcoming Morocco, the tourism, the friendly open image, the "modernist" King Mohammed VI (the current ruler) etc. Morocco is a proper "modern" dictatorship, or at the very least a very strong autocracy, run with an iron fist by a Mohammed VI, a narcissistic despot but one with a modern twist, extremely corrupt too but that goes without saying, the Moroccan royal family is worth billions, they have their fingers in every pie there is to be had.

                                            Yes, Mohammed VI is undoubtedly far less horrid than his father Hassan II, that's undeniable, he's a far more modern type of despot, more discreet, less abrasive, a much better communicator (what used to be called "a smooth operator") who will leave a handful of dissenters alone and use them as evidence that "the regime is not that bad". He's even let journalists expose some of the horrors committed during his father's reign (New King Delves into Father's Gruesome Heritage).

                                            His father: Hassan II, who ruled from 1961 to his death in 1999, who used to throw in jail opponents, journalists and other "dissenters" with gay abandon, sometimes in the notorious Tazmamart prison and let them rot for decades (they were tortured etc. cf the book "Notre ami le roi", by French investigative journalist-writer Gilles Perrault; fr. Wiki: In 1990 Perrault published Notre ami le roi (Our Friend the King, 1993) about the regime and human rights abuses of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco, who had until then been reported positively because of his close relations with the Western world).

                                            It’s true that Mohammed VI started positively with a reformist-ish agenda and so on but one can’t help feeling that it was more to woo the international community than anything else as he fairly quickly followed in the rotten footsteps of his father, albeit as I've written in a less outrageous way, he is a product of his time, he is a capitalist, wants to project a positive image, whereas his father couldn't give a shit really, as long as he had the French onside, politicians, th intelligentsia, big companies etc. (Chirac is, bien entendu, a close friend of the family). Hassan II was less repressive so after Perrault's book in 1990, Washington and Paris put pressure on him, human rights activists too, and he released hundreds of political prisoners before he died in 1999, when his son Mohammed VI took over at 35.

                                            Lots of doc on all this on the Net, mostly in French. Since Mohammed VI took over, hundreds of Moroccan journalists, activists, human rights defenders have been sent to prison or have had to flee the country such as Hicham Mansouri and Abdessamad Ait Aicha, interviewed here by a French school of journalism: « Je risque cinq ans de prison ferme au Maroc. Alors je suis parti. » Abdessamad Ait Aicha était journaliste à Rabat quand les printemps arabes ont éclaté, en 2011 : « Je me suis retrouvé à défendre la liberté avec des milliers de jeunes. » Trois ans plus tard, le régime entame une répression brutale. Plus de 500 activistes, journalistes et défenseurs de droits sont emprisonnés. « À cette époque, je travaillais avec d’autres journalistes sur un programme de développement des journalistes citoyens au Maroc. » Il se retrouve dans le collimateur du pouvoir. Accusé d’atteinte à la sécurité de l’État, il est interdit de quitter le territoire. « Et pourtant, je ne voyais qu’une seule solution : m’en aller. » Il parvient à se rendre en Tunisie et part pour la France en novembre 2015.

                                            Also check out AI report, page 265: https://www.amnesty.org/download/Doc...018ENGLISH.PDF

                                            The excellent Zineb El Rhazoui, ex Charlie Hebdo, has written and spoken out extensively about huge human rights abuse in Morocco, especially against homosexuals/LGBT rights.

                                            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zineb_El_Rhazoui

                                            http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2...a=gdpr-consent, For those who heard about the case of Ray Cole—a British tourist arrested last year in Marrakech, Morocco, on suspicion of committing “homosexual acts” and sentenced to four months’ hard time in a Moroccan jail prior to his early release—it is perhaps difficult to imagine that Morocco was something of a gay paradise for white men of standing in the aftermath of World War II.

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              oh good god. What a shitfest.

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                I'm with Berba all the way. Between USA and this so laughable obsession Trump suddenly is the worst when USA have had the worst for decades, and a truly worst in Morocco not even democratically elected still has significant power, I think I know where I'd object more.
                                                This "hope they get it just because it's Africa and to piss off America"
                                                How nice it must feel to be the same but fool yourself being different.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Bottom line - Morocco is a glorified Franco-American colony, and its ruler, like that of all other monarchies in the Arab world, is pretty much a puppet. Kevin's long narrative about the Moroccan dynasty obscures this basic fact.

                                                  Morocco has benefitted from a modicum of economic and social stability due in part to its geographical location; political stability by virtue of being located very far away from Israel, and economic stability as a low-cost labor center close to the EU.

                                                  Morocco is too small and too poor to support a vanity project like the World Cup, unlike the Gulf kingdoms. a joint Maghreb bid on the other hand involving Algeria and Tunisia would be a lot more feasible.

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