A senior official said that FIFA president Gianni Infantino is encouraging FIFA task force to block Morocco’s bid to host the 2026 World Cup, the BBC reported. The news comes amid Morocco’s suspicions over the impartiality of FIFA task force, which has conducted a visit recently to the African country where it deemed that stadiums need to be upgraded. Morocco protested the last minute change in hosting criteria by the task force concerning airports and city sizes, which may compromise Morocco’s candidacy. In response to the allegation, a FIFA spokesperson told BBC Sport: “The bidding process for the 2026 FIFA World Cup has been designed to evaluate the bids against objective criteria and so avoid a return to the secret and subjective decisions of the past”. Meanwhile, Moroccan delegations are visiting world capitals to promote the Moroccan bid.

Source: The North Africa Journal April 26, 2018 15:33 UTC