Spain will host 2030 World Cup final, says RFEF president
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Royal Spanish Football Federation president Rafael Louzan wants to see the 2030 World Cup final take place in Spain.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MADRID – The Spanish football federation (RFEF) president Rafael Louzan said Spain will stage the final of the 2030 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
Morocco wants to stage the game at the Hassan II stadium, a huge arena currently under construction north of Casablanca. However, world football’s governing body FIFA has the final say on where the match will be played.
“Spain has proven its organisational capacity over many years,” Louzan said late on Jan 26 at an event organised by the Madrid Sports Press Association. “It will be the leader of the 2030 World Cup and the final of that World Cup will be held here.”
He did not say whether the game would take place at Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu or Barcelona’s Camp Nou, both of which have been recently refurbished and are the two leading candidates.
Once completed, the Hassan II stadium in Morocco is expected to hold 115,000 spectators. The Moroccan football federation president Fouzi Lekjaa in 2025 expressed his wish to see a final against Spain in Casablanca.
“It will definitely be the biggest (stadium) in the football industry and, if not the biggest, then the second biggest in the world (overall),” Jorge Betancor, head of Spanish operations for global architecture design company Populous, which is building the stadium for Morocco, said in November.
Construction of the stadium, designed to look like a traditional Moroccan tent, began in late 2025 and should take about two-and-a-half years, he added.
It will be served by a high-speed train line, which is part of a US$10 billion (S$12.6 billion) expansion of Morocco’s rail network ahead of the tournament.
Louzan also alluded to the challenges Morocco faced during its hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations, including the chaotic scenes during the final between Senegal and the hosts earlier in January.
That match, which Senegal won 1-0, was overshadowed by fan disruptions and player protests that temporarily halted play.
“Morocco is really undergoing a transformation in every sense, with magnificent stadiums,” he said. “We must recognise what has been done well. But in the Africa Cup of Nations, we have seen scenes that damage the image of world football.”
FIFA and the Portuguese and Moroccan football federations did not respond to requests for comment on the final’s location.
FIFA told Reuters in 2025 that it was premature to decide the venue for the 2030 final, saying the host city for the 2026 World Cup final was revealed only two years before the tournament. REUTERS
