Module 023 · Infrastructure Economics
Road to 2030
The World Cup Blueprint
Morocco approved MAD 380 billion ($41 billion) for World Cup 2030infrastructure — not for 30 days of football, but for 50 years of skeleton. High-speed rail stitching five cities into one corridor. Airport capacity doubled. A stadium seating 115,000 people. And in the secondary cities that will never appear in a FIFA broadcast — new roads, new hotels, new reasons to stay.
$41B
total investment
MAD 380B approved 2026
200K+
jobs created
direct and indirect
26M
tourist target
by 2030 (from 17.4M)
115K
stadium seats
Grand Stade Hassan II
The $41 Billion
Where the money goes. 7 sectors. Bar width = share of total investment.
430 km Kénitra→Marrakech extension. 168 new trains. 350 km/h. Future: Agadir, Fez lines.
27 port upgrades. Nador West Med mega-port. Tanger Med expansion to 9M TEU.
38M → 80M passengers/year. Mohammed V new terminal. 7 airport upgrades.
Grand Stade Hassan II (115K seats, $500M). 5 renovations. 60 training centres.
Continental Rabat-Casa 60 km. Tit Mellil-Berrechid 30 km. Stadium access roads.
+40,000 rooms (290K → 330K). RAM fleet 50 → 200+ aircraft.
Remaining budget across 35 cities. Smart infrastructure, urban transport, digital.
The Shrinking Country
LGV travel time compression. 8 routes. Before vs after 2029. The country gets smaller.
Kénitra → Marrakech extension · 350 km/h · completion 2029
The LGV merges Marrakech, Casablanca, Rabat, and Tangier into one commutable corridor. A businessperson in Rabat can have lunch in Marrakech and be home for dinner. That is not just faster travel — it is a different country.
The Spillover Effect
6 host cities. Regional GDP 2024 vs projected 2030. Hover for spillover cities that benefit without hosting.
The AFCON Proof of Concept
2025 Africa Cup of Nations — the dress rehearsal. Results:
€2.3B
invested in infrastructure
€1.5B
direct revenue recovered
9
stadiums built/rehabilitated in 24 months
100K+
jobs created
3,000+
companies participated
80%
of WC sports costs now funded
“We gained a decade of development in 24 months and provided the kingdom with infrastructure that will serve citizens for the next 50 years.”
— Ryad Mezzour, Minister of Industry and Commerce
Reading Notes
The Shrinking Country
The LGV merges Marrakech–Rabat–Casablanca into one commutable corridor. Tangier to Marrakech drops from 7 hours to 2 hours 40 minutes. This is not incremental improvement — it is a structural reorganisation of geography. The economic literature calls it “effective distance collapse.”
The Spillover Geometry
Secondary cities benefit without hosting matches — but only if infrastructure serves the country, not just the tournament. South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014 are cautionary tales of white elephants. Morocco's advantage: the LGV and port investments have utility beyond football.
The AFCON Test
The 2025 AFCON was a proof of concept that already recovered 80% of World Cup sports infrastructure costs. Nine stadiums in 24 months. The remaining 20% is the LGV extension, hotels, and the Grand Stadium — infrastructure that serves the country for 50 years, not 30 days.
Forty-one billion dollars is an abstraction. Here is what it looks like on the ground: a 430-kilometre high-speed rail line stitching five cities into one corridor. Eighty million airport passengers where there were thirty-eight million. Twenty-six million tourists where there were seventeen million. Two hundred thousand jobs that did not exist. And in the secondary cities — the Berrechids and Tiznits and Sefrous that will never appear in a FIFA broadcast — new roads, new hotels, new reasons to stay. The World Cup lasts 30 days. The skeleton lasts 50 years.
Stadium Infrastructure
Sources
MAD 380B ($41B) budget: AGBI (Oct 2025). Sector breakdown: WeeTracker (Oct 2025). LGV travel times: Morocco World News (Dec 2024, Apr 2025). AFCON economics: Morocco World News (Jan 2026), Mezzour quote. GDP projections: HCP regional accounts 2023–2024 with Atlas Capital growth modelling. Tourism target: MIPA Institute. Grand Stade: $500M, 115K capacity (FIFA/Moroccan bid committee). All figures approximate; government budgets shift between announcement and execution.
© 2026 Dancing with Lions
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