Morocco’s rise in global football is being powered by an unlikely source of funding: the country’s vast phosphate reserves, with the state fertilizer giant bankrolling the national team’s development.<\/p>\n
OCP Group, the world’s largest phosphate \u200bfertilizer producer and exporter, has thrown its weight behind Moroccan football through a National Football Training Fund \u200claunched in 2024, joining forces with the Royal Moroccan Football Federation and private funders to elevate the sport to new heights.<\/p>\n
“We have this commitment to the development of the country,” said Hicham El Habti, president of the OCP-funded University of Mohammed VI Polytechnic and part of OCP’s \u200bstrategic committee for innovation and learning, explaining why a fertilizer producer would invest in football under a “royal directive” \u200bfor state-owned institutions.
\n“There’s a huge investment from OCP in the training fields. There is a partnership \u2060with FIFA,” said El Habti as Morocco prepare for their World Cup round-of-16 clash against co-hosts Canada in Houston on Saturday.
\nOCP’s \u200brecent contributions are not the start of the efforts Morocco has made to become more of a power in African and \u200bworld football.<\/p>\n
In 2009, King Mohammed VI directed the nation’s government to invest in the country’s football infrastructure, including pitches, training academies for youth, stadiums and professional coaches.<\/p>\n
OCP joined the project in 2024 to take Moroccan football to another level.
\nIt funds training academies, “equipping them with modern infrastructure, efficient \u200bfacility management and advanced technical expertise,” said OCP when the fund was launched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20530,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-38791","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"In 2009, King Mohammed VI directed the nation's government to invest in the country's football infrastructure.","published_date":"","news_description":"In 2009, King Mohammed VI directed the nation's government to invest in the country's football infrastructure.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38792,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38791\/revisions\/38792"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}