Morocco’s anti-gay laws may hurt Cup bid
Country downplays discrimination issue in push for 2026 soccer tournament
A FIFA task force arrived in Morocco Monday to inspect a World Cup bid that obscures one potential impediment to hosting the 2026 soccer showpiece: Homosexuality is a criminal offence in the North African country.
An Associated Press review of 483 pages of documents submitted to FIFA found Morocco failed to declare its anti-LGBT law as a risk factor and provide a remedy, appearing to flout stringent new bidding requirements.
“Morocco’s human rights report presented to the FIFA is an intentional silence on an issue that Morocco knows too well is a crime on its soil,” Ahmed El Haij, president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, told The Associated Press.
“It is evident that if Morocco was to host the World Cup, LGBT people coming to watch the games will face a lot of discrimination. The state will not be able to protect them nor will it be able to commit in preventing measures that could be taken against them by both the state and society.”
Under Article 489 of the Moroccan penal code, sexual acts between people of the same sex are punishable by six months to three years in prison.
FIFA has demonstrated a growing awareness in recent years of how rights abuses can impact its events. World Cups must be in environments free of “discrimination based on sexual orientation,” FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura wrote to activists last year.
Samoura’s letter reflected a policy incorporated into the world soccer statutes in 2013 as scrutiny of human rights mounted in Russia and 2022 World Cup host Qatar.
“Under the new nondiscrimination requirements under FIFA’s statutes and under the Human Rights Policy, one of the red lines is anti-gay activity laws or policies,” Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden told The Associated Press.
“Morocco, if they ’re serious about winning, would need to be prepared to repeal the article of the penal code which punishes people for being gay.”
Prospective hosts for the 2026 tournament were mandated to commission independent human rights reports and provide frank risk assessments that form part of the task force’s evaluation.
While the U.S.-Canada-Mexico bid chose to publish its human rights documents, Morocco refused requests from The Associated Press to match the disclosure.
The Associated Press was provided with the human rights annexes to Morocco’s bid book by FIFA only after highlighting the North African nation’s lack of transparency.
There is a solitary passing reference to LGBT rights in the main 381page bid book: A narrowly worded pledge by the Moroccan soccer federation to “work to combat all forms of discrimination” including “sexual orientation,” signed by its president, Fouzi Leekjaa. There is no mention of homosexuality being a criminal offence in the bid book.
Morocco’s only acknowledgment homosexuality is outlawed comes in one sentence in a 42-page “study on the human rights situation.”
The study cites the United Nations Human Rights Council’s “Universal Periodic Review” of the country, stating “Morocco took note of forty-four recommendations,” including “the decriminalization of homosexual relations.”
How Morocco responded is not provided to FIFA.
That could be because Morocco told the UN in August 2017 it “completely rejects” proposals to decriminalize same-sex relations.
“It’s very clear from reading these bids against each other that the united bid of the U.S., Canada and Mexico are taking this process quite seriously both in the scope and the scale and have admitted to human rights problems that they have that they will need to address,” Worden said. “And there are very serious concerns both on the LGBT discrimination front and on women’s rights (in Morocco).”
One of the members of the bid’s human rights board maintained Morocco is a “friendly and tolerant” country.
“I don’t think that ( ban on homosexuality) will be an issue because organizing a World Cup is mainly about infrastructure, being passionate about football, and the ability to organize a safe World Cup,” said Jamal Elamrani, who represents the Junior Chamber International organization in Morocco.
“We have our laws and we have our values and maybe FIFA also have their values. We may have some differences but we just need to have the ability to respect the differences and to be tolerant.”
We have our laws and we have our values and maybe FIFA also have their values ... we just need (to respect) the differences.