“We are moving towards the status of continental, regional and even international reference”assured Aziz Akhannouch, the Moroccan Prime Minister, last July. Morocco is the big favorite for the 2025 African Cup of Nations (CAN), which it will host from December 21 to January 18, 2026. If the population is enthusiastic, the government is hoping for the victory of the Atlas Lions to further establish the dominant position it claims on the continent. The culmination of a long-term influence strategy which is not without ulterior motives or ambiguity.
In 2017, Morocco rejoined the African Union (AU), thirty-two years after leaving it following the integration into the AU of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which defends the independence of Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco also claims. Convinced, since then, that it would more easily obtain recognition of its sovereignty over this territory from within African institutions than from the outside, the Shereef kingdom has continued to strengthen its integration with the continent by taking advantage of its lead in terms of wealth and development to position itself as a support and leader.
The strength and form of Moroccan football
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF), led by Fouzi Lekjaa since 2014, has become, as such, a real instrument of sports diplomacy. It has signed forty-seven cooperation agreements with African federations. “On the occasion of the organization of the final phases of qualification for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Morocco hosted on its soil the meetings of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Djibouti in September 2022, since these countries do not have infrastructure that meets international standards”recall Moroccan researchers Imad Khater and Smail Serrar in their article “Morocco and diplomacy through football in Africa”, published in the journal Podium of sport sciences in February 2023.
“Since he has been at the head of the FRMF, on April 13, 2014, Fouzi Lekjaa, (…) was elected to the executive committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) after the withdrawal of the candidacy of the president of the Algerian Federation Kheïreddine Zetchi. Since March 2021, he has held the position of vice-president of CAF and until now heads the famous CAF budget committee. In April 2022, the president of CAF appointed him to the working group of the FIFA standardization committees.details a note from the Moroccan branch of the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank.
This football diplomacy in Africa has allowed Morocco to work for its great national cause: “the Moroccanness of the Sahara”.
At the end of July 2025, FIFA also inaugurated its regional office near Rabat, the first in North Africa, while Marrakech already hosts a CAF headquarters. The Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, whose influence extends to the gates of the palace – it welcomed Crown Prince Moulay Hassan for his studies – has become the host of international events such as the World Football Summit or the CAF Awards, the awards ceremony rewarding African football, in November.
For their part, the Moroccan teams have proven the effectiveness of local structures and the vitality of football in the country. On the national selection side, we find three coronations in four editions of the African Nations Championship in 2018, 2020 and 2024, as well as the good run made by the Atlas Lions until the semi-finals of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar (best historical performance for an African team at the World Cup). On the club side, across the continent, Raja Casablanca (2018, 2021) and RS Berkane (2020, 2022, 2025) have lifted the CAF Confederation Cup several times, while Wydad Casablanca won the most prestigious CAF Champions League in 2022.
A CAN offered to Morocco before the 2030 World Cup
This vitality and this football diplomacy in Africa have allowed Morocco to work for its great national cause: “the Moroccanness of the Sahara”. In 2017, he obtained that article 4 of the CAF statutes now stipulates that “the Confederation of African Football is open to all applications from African national associations as official representatives managing football in a country recognized as an independent state and which is a member of the United Nations (UN)”. In other words, the SADR, recognized and member of the African Union, but designated as a “non-self-governing territory” by the UN can never be a member.
Likewise, in 2020, CAF and FIFA have given their agreement to the city of Laâyoune, the most important in Western Sahara, to host the African Futsal Cup of Nations, despite the withdrawal of South Africa and Algeria. “Such recognition is synonymous with a green light for Morocco to organize other demonstrations (in Western Sahara)”underline Imad Khater and Smail Serrar.
The strategy of ousting the SADR from continental institutions also targets its first ally: Algeria. When Morocco applied to host CAN 2025, its opponent was Algeria. A match before the match that Morocco won thanks to intense and well-established lobbying, therefore, within CAF, which designates the organizing country.
“Morocco has modern stadiums. (…) Algeria also had arguments, but where the Moroccans are far ahead is in the power of their lobbying”explains a leader of a sub-Saharan federation, to Jeune Afrique magazine, in September 2023, just after Algeria’s last minute withdrawal. “We had the impression that everything was decided in advance. We quickly understood that Morocco would be entrusted with the organization of this CAN although Algeria had a solid file.for his part estimated Meziane Ighil, former coach of the Fennecs.
Algeria therefore ended up withdrawing, just like the other candidate countries, the day before the nomination of the host country, so that Morocco won the organization of CAN 2025 without any competition. Patrice Motsepe, president of CAF, was clear that day at a press conference: “The main reason is to support Morocco in its bid for the 2030 World Cup.” Since then, in December 2024, the organization of this 2030 edition of the World Cup has been entrusted to a Spain-Portugal-Morocco trio, which will allow the kingdom to become the second African country to host the event, after South Africa in 2010.
Echoing this, the president of the Moroccan Federation Fouzi Lekjaa, who met the African ambassadors on December 3, 2025, at the Mohammed VI football complex, assured that “the kingdom considers CAN 2025 as belonging to all of Africa and that Morocco is determined to guarantee its success, in accordance with the guidelines of his majesty the king and the ambitions of the continent”.
Anti-Black racism and controversies
The kingdom thus manages, through CAN 2025 and football, to defend its own interests in Africa while managing to convince that it promotes those of the entire continent. It advantageously masks another reality which appears clearly in the stands: Morocco still defines itself as “Arab” and white and, whatever the diplomatic efforts of those in power, its population does not consider itself African. In Morocco, an “African” is above all a Black person.
For example, Nicolas Pépé, a Franco-Ivorian striker who plays for Villarreal in Spain and represents the Ivory Coast, has paid the price for latent anti-Black racism in Morocco. On December 6, he joked in a video published on YouTube with the Franco-Algerian influencer Just Riadh, about Morocco’s low number of victories at the CAN in the past, unlike Ivory Coast and Algeria. This outing earned him a barrage of anti-Black racist remarks on social networks but also, and this is notable, his non-selection for the Ivorian national team for the CAN, precisely.
In February 2020, following their team’s victory against TP Mazembe (DR Congo), in the quarter-final first leg of the CAF Champions League, supporters of Raja Casablanca were also noticed by a photomontage of a man with monkey features and black skin wearing the official jersey of Wydad, the other Casablanca club and great rival of Raja, adorned with the TP Mazembe crest.
In fact, anti-Black racism is very present throughout the Arab world and particularly in Morocco, due to the legacy of the trafficking of Black Africans by the Arabs. “In common usage, the Arabic language designates the white person by a term which means “free”. On the other hand, the black person is designated by the terms “abid” or “oussif” which mean “slave””explains researcher Célia Sadai, in her article “Anti-Black racism in the Maghreb: unveiling(s) of a taboo”, published in 2021.
The 2015 episode seems forgotten, but…
When the Ebola epidemic hit Africa in the mid-2010s, it quickly reactivated racist discourse among the population, so much so that we began to hear the nickname “Ebola” to refer to a black African. In 2015, Morocco was to host the CAN and had requested, in October 2014, a postponement of the event due to the epidemic. This request went down very badly with the CAF, then led by Issa Hayatou, who increased sanctions against Morocco and withdrew the organization (which would return to Equatorial Guinea).
The sanctions imposed on Morocco will finally be lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in April 2015. “While this country is trying to develop its relations with African countries, particularly in the West, this decision will be experienced as humiliating and will cause a disconnect between Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa. This is seen as discriminatory by Africans”Pascal Boniface had feared at the time. Eleven years later, no one talks about this failed act anymore.
However, in September 2025, Morocco surprised everyone by imposing a temporary electronic visa on eight countries – all on the African continent –: Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gabon, Niger, Senegal, Togo and Tunisia. The Moroccan authorities assure that “this system aims to facilitate reception, to streamline entry formalities, while guaranteeing the safety of all”. However, it is difficult to believe that the introduction of an additional administrative formality could make anything more fluid. On the other hand, security fear, still very strong in Morocco, seems the determining element: as in 2015. Will Morocco also impose electronic visas on nationals of European countries during the 2030 World Cup?
