The rival World Cup 2026 bids of Morocco and the US, Mexico and Canada met the presidents of the Nordic football associations to present their cases. The press was mostly interested in Donald Trump’s twitter habits.
By Lars Johnsen
The reception area of a hotel adjacent to Copenhagen Airport was packed with what what seemed to be hundreds of travellers with two pieces of luggage each. Upstairs, and away from the crowd, five presidents of the football associations of the Nordic countries convened on the morning of Thursday 3 May. Inside one of the hotel’s many conference rooms – each room named after a Norse mythology character – delegations from the bid committees of the competing bids for the 2026 World Cup presented their cases.
Morocco kicked off the proceedings in the Balder 2 meeting room in front of Karl-Erik Nilsson of Sweden, Guðni Bergsson of Iceland, Jesper Møller of Denmark, Terje Svendsen of Norway and Ari Lahti of Finland.
The Faroese FA president Christian F. Andreassen was absent due to other obligations.
Morocco 2026 would not take questions from the media, the press was told by a representative from the Danish FA, who organised the event. A move quickly declared a Moroccan own goal by the press. It prompted some of the waiting journalists to speculate. Did Morocco 2026 want to avoid questions regarding the country’s ban on homosexuality, or about Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara?
“Four hours”
After the presentation to the heads of the FAs, CEO of the Morocco 2026 bid, Hicham El Amrani, appeared in front of the press where he gave a summary of what he’d presented to the presidents.
The geographical distance to Europe, with everything that entails, was his strongest message – underscored by El Amrani’s own very recent experience. He’d flo...
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