The President of the Royal Moroccan Football Federation, Fouzi Lekjaa, has dismissed claims that FIFA President Gianni Infantino has made a final decision to select Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu Stadium as the venue for the 2030 FIFA World Cup final. Lekjaa emphasized that match allocations are subject to formal procedures that cannot be bypassed by individual agreements.
Responding to a report published by the Spanish newspaper Marca, Lekjaa addressed the issue in an interview broadcast by Morocco’s Al Aoula television channel on the evening of Friday, July 11, 2025. The Marca article claimed that an agreement had been reached between FIFA President Infantino and Real Madrid President Florentino Pérez during a meeting at one of the FIFA Club World Cup matches held in the United States. Lekjaa categorically denied the accuracy of this claim.
The Moroccan official clarified that the process of distributing World Cup matches still requires "multiple rounds of negotiations." He noted that “any media outlet—whether in Spain, Morocco, Portugal, or elsewhere—has the right to report and speculate,” but stressed that the committees organizing the 2030 World Cup, representing the three host countries, do not include club presidents among their members.
Lekjaa reaffirmed that the only official and confirmed element at this stage is that Morocco, Spain, and Portugal will jointly host the 2030 World Cup. He added that FIFA follows a range of criteria to allocate matches, typically favoring the largest ready stadiums for the opening and final matches. He noted that Morocco is currently focused on “getting to work,” with the stadiums in Tangier and Rabat expected to be completed within weeks, while construction work has already begun on the stadium in Benslimane.
On July 12, 2025, Assahifa published a report quoting an official Moroccan source who also denied claims that FIFA had finalized the selection of the final match venue for the 2030 World Cup. The source was reacting to Marca’s report about the supposed choice of the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium for the event.
The source asserted that the information published was inaccurate and described it as “mere speculation presented as news,” suggesting it was part of a broader effort to exert “media pressure.” The source added that this was not the first time such claims had been circulated, reflecting "a lack of understanding of the formal procedures through which such decisions are made."
The source went on to state that a decision of this magnitude—such as the selection of the final match venue—“is not made in the corridors of a stadium,” referring to Marca’s claim that the supposed agreement was struck during a casual encounter between Infantino and Pérez at a Club World Cup match in the U.S.
Lekjaa’s statements come just days after his meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who recently visited Morocco for a family vacation in Agadir. Infantino also attended the inauguration of FIFA’s new regional headquarters in Rabat and was present at the final of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations held at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat.
