Potential for Legacy

Tom Williams and I were in Morocco this week as part of a UK trade delegation.

We heard how Morocco’s co-hosting of the 2030 Football World Cup will accelerate infrastructure and socio-economic projects from high-speed rail, roads and airports to healthcare facilities and services.

It was also clear that Morocco wants the World Cup to leave a positive community legacy, which is where we would love to contribute.

Community sport initiatives- including football foundations, provide essential health and social services every day across the UK, reaching millions of people each year and worth £billions to the UK economy. If you were to map this, you’d see how community sport is essential social infrastructure.

I believe that we could help forge partnerships between people already doing amazing things across communities in Morocco and community sport initiatives in the UK, sharing know-how whilst helping to scale participation.

For example, the immense pride and passion for football, as Tom and I saw when we watched Raja Casablanca vs RS Berkane, could help drive a World Cup legacy of social good through football, as happens in the UK.

I hope that in years to come, we’ll look back on the 2030 World Cup as having accelerated a social infrastructure legacy across Morocco (and beyond), recognising that legacy was seeded well before the first ball was kicked.