Daily Mail

Angry Morocco fear dirty tricks by FIFA

- Charles Sale c.sale@dailymail.co.uk and twitter.com/charliesal­e

IT has emerged that what amounts to a dirty tricks campaign has been waged by FIFA against Morocco since the African country made a late bid to stage the 2026 World Cup.

Morocco, making their fifth bid to host the tournament, have faced one problem after another in challengin­g the united bid of USA, Canada and Mexico. The latest concern is that FIFA have yet to answer official letters questionin­g, on strong legal grounds, why American territorie­s Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands have not been ruled out from voting at the FIFA Congress on June 13.

Morocco have also had to combat FIFA making changes to their staging requiremen­ts just 48 hours before the bid book deadline in March.

This included changing the maximum time allowed from team hotel to training ground and the minimum population for a host city. They also changed the maximum time allowed to travel from host city centre to airport to 90 minutes when Morocco had included a journey of 91 minutes.

It was also proposed at FIFA council level — but rejected — that the number of suitable existing stadiums should be increased to six which would have knocked out their bid at a stroke.

The Moroccan bid are also not happy that two senior figures on the united bid, American Sunil Gulati and Canada’s Víctor Montaglian­i, have allegedly stayed in the FIFA council room when World Cup bid business was being discussed.

Plus it is felt the United delegates showed a lack of respect in Brussels, not giving the Moroccans the courtesy of listening to their presentati­on when they had been present for the United address to media.

And that even FIFA’s administra­tive staff were discourteo­us to the Moroccans at a World Cup workshop in Zurich. In addition there has been political interferen­ce in a tweet from American President Donald Trump — a veiled threat to US allies if they support the Africans. Morocco bid chief Hicham El Amrani (above) said: ‘FIFA rules are very clear on political interferen­ce.’

IT

is understood three county cricket chairmen objected to the appointmen­t of former Glamorgan chairman Barry O’Brien to the ECB board at the AGM yesterday. This was not enough opposition to prevent O’Brien from taking his seat, but it was a warning shot from a group who normally toe the party line. There is an on-going investigat­ion into the ECB paying O’Brien’s Glamorgan £2.5million to stop staging Test cricket in Cardiff. Meanwhile, the best news from the meeting is that Giles Clarke is no longer president of the ECB so no longer on the board. Good riddance. ONLY FIFA, who are seemingly making up the rules on the FIFA Congress election for the staging of the 2026 World Cup on the hoof, could have decided that it will be a supposed electronic transparen­t vote — yet have not announced when who voted for who will be made public.

LILIAN

THURAM, World Cup-winning defender who played a record 142 games for France, appeared at a dinner during Morocco’s World Cup bid media trip. But Thuram, for some reason, was very keen to stress that he was not an ambassador for the bid — merely a supporter — and even took off his official Morocco pin badge to prove the point. Morocco do have their great Olympic 1500m and 5,000m champion Hicham El Guerrouj and Brazilian footballer Roberto Carlos as representa­tives.

Farrell snub for awards

OWEN FARRELL was one of three short-listed as England men’s player of the year at last night’s Rugby Players’ Associatio­n’s glitzy awards dinner at Battersea Evolution held in partnershi­p with England Rugby.

But Farrell declined his invite as he continues to be a world-class player on the pitch, but act far less classy off it, seemingly unaware that his England talisman status really requires him to attend this kind of event if nominated and do more than give lip-service to the rugby union media.

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