ne more humiliation, they say. Vox filed a non-binding motion in Spain’s Congress on Wednesday calling on Pedro Sanchez’s government to pressure FIFA into excluding Morocco from organizing the 2030 World Cup, co-hosted with Spain and Portugal, and to ensure the final is played on Spanish soil. The motion accuses Rabat of once again using immigration as leverage, after the surge of migrants into Ceuta in early August. The episode’s oddity lies in its allies: Sumar, Izquierda Unida and Podemos, at odds with Vox on nearly everything, are demanding the same exclusion, this time invoking the Kingdom’s human rights record.
The motion has no chance of succeeding: FIFA alone decides where its finals are played, and neither Vox nor the Spanish Parliament has a say in that part of the bidding rulebook. But the convergence itself says plenty about the state of Morocco’s standing in Madrid: when the far right and the radical left land on the same motion, it means the migration crisis has reopened a wound the Iberian-Moroccan bid thought closed. Casablanca, the presumed host for the final according to several Spanish sports outlets, will now have to defend its case on ground that has turned political again, before a ball is even kicked.
Photo: Javier Perez Montes, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Libertad Digital - Vox, Izquierda Unida and Podemos join the call to exclude Morocco from the World Cup
Vozpopuli - The World Cup unites left and right on the need to expel Morocco from the organization
