By hosting the Africa Cup, Morocco is consistently continuing its football offensive. The plan behind the billion-dollar investments: The goal is to win the title at the 2030 World Cup in your own country.
The gates to the Mohammed VI Football Academy are hermetically sealed. Here, in the 2.5 square kilometer area not far from the Bouregreg River, which separates Morocco’s capital Rabat from its small sister city Salé, no one is allowed to enter. It is the well-kept secret of the Moroccan football boom. It is the central football academy that will lead the kingdom to victory at the 2030 World Cup.
Morocco is hosting the 35th Africa Cup of Nations in the next few weeks – it’s something of an overture to a much larger concert. The national team should, to a certain extent, warm up for 2030 in front of their own audience. Hardly anyone in Rabat, Tangier, Casablanca, Fes and Agadir doubts that Morocco will emerge as winners of the African Championships on January 18th.
Euphoria from the World Cup semi-finals
The euphoria surrounding football development in the country is enormous. There was the entry into the men’s World Cup semi-finals in 2022 in Qatar with victories against Spain and Portugal, which was most recently confirmed with a friendly win against Brazil (2-1) in the spring of 2025. There was the enormous development of the women’s national team, which qualified for a World Cup for the first time in 2023 and came second at the 2022 and 2025 African Championships. Finally, the U20 team recently triumphed at the 2025 World Cup in Chile, when Morocco’s youngsters surprisingly secured the title.
These are results that have made Morocco the leading African football nation in just a few years. “Morocco’s success must be an incentive for other African countries. But dreams alone are not enough. We have to learn concretely from Morocco’s experiences and act.”says the Secretary General of the African Football Confederation Caf, Veron Mosengo-Omba.
“Morocco must be an example”
The official from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who will be responsible for development programs in Africa and the Caribbean at the world football association Fifa until 2021, demands: “Association and politics have worked hand in hand in Morocco in recent years to systematically advance football in the country and to systematically promote talent. That must be an example for others too. That’s how it works.”
What Mosengo-Omba means: Morocco’s government has invested millions of US dollars in the systematic development of football in the country in recent years. A funding program has been implemented since 2010 that is unique in Africa. With the construction of the Mohammed VI Football Academy, a state-of-the-art training center was opened as the centerpiece. At royal expense, the best training conditions were created for 50 young footballers who received a full scholarship.
Academy for 50 footballers with a full scholarship
The academy’s structure is based on Moroccan cultural heritage. The shape resembles a traditional douar with a central village square surrounded by five buildings. Each building fulfills a specific function: accommodation, education, medical facility and canteen. One school offers a three-stage program for trainees.
Embedded in the facility are four stadiums built according to FIFA guidelines and a special training area for goalkeepers. The center cost the equivalent of around 33 million euros, and Morocco has also invested many times more in infrastructure with the new construction and renovation of nine stadiums.
GenZ demonstrations against football billion
This is all just for football, which has particularly attracted the younger population of the kingdom. “No World Cup, health comes first” and “We want hospitals, not football stadiums” chanted the demonstrators of the GenZ movement in October, which actually shook Morocco for a few days. “GenZ swept over Morocco like a huge tidal wave”wrote the Moroccan daily newspaper “Atalayar”.
Reports and estimates come to different conclusions regarding the amount of investments. They will be somewhere between two and three billion euros. King Mohammed VI partially agreed with the demonstrators and promised improvements.
The Moroccan king has the final say when it comes to important decisions in the country. Although Morocco’s day-to-day operations are led by an elected parliamentary government, when it comes to far-reaching foreign policy decisions and resolutions, the judgment of Mohammed VI counts.
Celebrations after the U20 title
The GenZ demonstrations in Morocco were short-lived. In the capital, they were seamlessly replaced by celebrations after a football success. When the U20 national team returned from Chile in mid-October with the world championship title in their pocket, they were welcomed by tens of thousands of cheering people in Rabat.
Title at the U20 World Cup as confirmation
The football boom came about at the royal behest. The first trainees in the academy were brought together from the region around Rabat in 2010 and were systematically supported from then on. The site was also used as a permanent campus for training camps for the men’s and women’s national teams. Similar systems were subsequently built in Agadir, Tangier and Saidia by 2015.
The results cannot be overlooked: the players on the U20 World Cup team, which beat Brazil, Spain, France and Argentina in the final, were all trained at the Academy in Salé. At the latest after the Africa Cup, which is primarily contested by the “old guard”, they will form the core of the Moroccan national team. They are already highly sought after internationally.
Talents sought after worldwide
World Cup top scorer Yassir Zabiri, midfielder Othmane Maamma and left winger Ilias Boumassaoudi are in the sights of the biggest European clubs, and goalkeeper Ibrahim Gomis and defender Taha Majni will also be able to choose their club teams in the next few years.
They were still among the spectators at the Africa Cup, in which Morocco won the opening game against outsiders Comoros 2-0 on Sunday (December 21, 2025). Everyone in Morocco expects the same thing: their team to win the title. As a foretaste for 2030.