The entry of 72,000 migrants through the Ceuta border has left an unusual image in Congress: Vox and Sumar have presented respective proposals seeking to study the exclusion of Morocco from organizing the 2030 World Cup. This Thursday, Abascal’s party registered a motion in the lower house requesting that the Sports Commission discuss its exclusion as a co-host country, while the leftist coalition had already registered a similar document a day earlier. Additionally, sources from the far-right party indicate they would be willing to support Sumar’s proposal if it “reached the plenary or commission”.
“The very serious events recorded in Ceuta on July 30 and 31 have completely broken the assumptions of trust and cooperation on which a shared candidacy necessarily rests,” emphasize the far-right party. “It is not a loyal partner, neither for organizing a sporting event of this magnitude nor for any neighborhood matter,” they add in their non-legislative proposal.
Likewise, they insist that the arrivals of migrants constitute “very serious attacks on national sovereignty” and on “territorial integrity.” This, they explain, raises “serious doubts about Morocco’s ability to provide the guarantees required by an event of the scale of the 2030 World Cup.” Therefore, Abascal’s group asks “that the Executive defend Spain’s prominence and interests in organizing the championship and promote before FIFA the review of Morocco’s participation as a host state.”
This coincides with what was stated the previous day by Sumar. The main government partner assured in its document that “as long as such serious doubts persist about the political use of human lives,” Morocco cannot “obtain the prestige, economic benefits, and international legitimacy of a World Cup.” Both formations differ in form but not in substance, since Sumar points out that “migration cooperation cannot function as a key that opens or closes depending on diplomatic interests.” In their proposal, they complain that, in their opinion, “migrants cannot be used by the Moroccan government nor criminalized upon arrival in Spain.” Even so, Vox would be willing to support this proposal.
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Vox and Sumar have not been the only ones defending that Morocco should not organize the tournament. The secretary of organization of Podemos, Pablo Fernández, has also done so from his X account: “Spain should not organize the World Cup with a dictatorship like Morocco that does not respect human rights and is responsible for the death of more than 140 people in an operation against Spain,” he wrote, before concluding that the World Cup should be organized “only with Portugal.”
This response from political parties comes at a time of uncertainties, both within FIFA and in the organization of the tournament. The biggest question is the stadium where the grand final will be played. According to the words in January of the president of the RFEF, Rafael Louzán, the final will be held in Spain, with the Santiago Bernabéu stadium as the spearhead. But the football body has not yet made a decision. Morocco also wants the final and is putting pressure to get it. To this end, it promoted the project to renovate its great stadium, the Hassan II in Casablanca, with a capacity of 115,000 spectators, led by the firm responsible for the latest Wembley renovation.
The Minister of Sports, Milagros Tolón, was asked about her government partner’s proposal on the Cadena SER microphones, and she assured that they maintain their confidence in organizing the event. “We respect, we are in a coalition government, sometimes we have differences and, as a government, we bet on this World Cup,” she defended. In the interview, Tolón was asked about the information from the British newspaper The Times, which claimed that FIFA president Gianni Infantino had offered the tournament final to Morocco in exchange for its support in the presidential elections. “We want the final to be in Spain because we deserve it,” the minister confessed, before concluding that “it will be FIFA who decides.”
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