Mohammed VI Football Complex: Morocco’s $75M Training Hub

A 5 to 0 win against Niger Last Friday in Rabat he turned Morocco, a fourth in the Qatar 2022 World Cup, in the first African team to ensure its 2026 World Cup classification that will be played in Canada, Mexico and the United States. For some, perhaps the walk of the Lions of Atlas. However, the results have as a backdrop a three -decady work that demanded decision, method and money, and not only shows its fruits with the major male team.

The heart of Moroccan football is in the district Hssain de Saléa city bordering Rabat, from which only the BU record river is separated. There is the Mohammed VI football complexwhich was inaugurated on December 9, 2019 by the King after a remodeling work of the former National Soccer Center in Maamoura, which lasted more than three years and required an investment of 75 million dollars.

This site of 35 hectares is the house of the 27 national and female national football, futsal and football From the U-13 category to the major. Its location is strategic, since it is only three kilometers from the capital of the capital, which facilitates the trips of any delegation. That, for example, was one of the aspects that Carlos Bilardo took into account in 1987 when choosing the land that would later become the land of the Argentine Football Association and that is five kilometers from the Ezeiza airport terminal.

The Mohammed VI complex, in which 200 people work, has 11 courts of natural, artificial and hybrid grass, among them a dazzling land covered with synthetic grass with FIFA certification. It also has five buildings for accommodation (one is used exclusively by the selected major and female selected) with a total capacity of 510 beds, a restaurant, a gym, an Olympic pool outdoors, tennis and paddle courts.

“The complex is oriented to excellence, to the national selected in particular, but also to the scope of training”explains a Clarion Hassan Kharbouch, the director of the complex. And add: “This is a multidisciplinary space. It works on the training in Soccer Medicine, in the administrative and technical-physical technician. The heart of the complex is the medical-sports unit, with an area of ​​7,500 square meters on three levels, with everything necessary for rehabilitation tasks, functional exploration and research, and a consultation area for athletes”.

Indeed, the Center for Sports Medicine and Performance is a state -of -the -art space with areas of physiotherapy, traumatology, radiology, ultrasound, electrotherapy, bone densitometry, cryotherapy, nutritional medicine, podontology, dentistry, ophthalmology and psychology.

In addition, in this space in which green abounds, a harmonious link with the natural environment is sought. “The Moroccan Football Real Federation (FRMF) has been very insistent in respect for the environment. We collect rainwater, we make wastewater treatments, we do not have gas tanks, we only use solar and photovoltaic panels,” Kharbouch details.

In July, Gianni Infantino was here to inaugurate the FIFA Africa office, which also works in the complex. On the day of his visit, the president of the governing body of world football described the property as “an incredible and magnificent infrastructure” and placed it as one of the three best in the world in its kind. In 2023, Real Madrid used it as its operations base during the Club World Cup.

The complex also has, through the FRMF, associations with more than 45 federations of different parts of the world that allow it to provide workshops and perform other activities here. And also manages international meetings. “This year we have organized 173 games with associations of Africa, Latin America, Japan and some European countries such as France, Spain, Portugal, Russia and Switzerland,” says Kharbouch.

When referring to the successful structure of Moroccan football, the director of the Mohammed VI complex emphasizes the concept of pyramid and argues that the construction of the space in charge was the most visible action, but not the only one, of a National Program for the Development and Modernization of the infrastructure linked to football that began 15 years ago.

“At the base of the pyramid, 145 courts were built for children and young Pyramid, ”he explains.

As part of this development program, 155 members of the youth selected are formed under the Sports-Study modality. They do it at the Mohammed VI Academy, which is located in the vicinity of the complex, in which conventional education is combined with intensive football training. For that space, launched in 2009, soccer players passed today the selected selected such as the Nayef Aguerd defender, midfielder Azzedine Ounahi and striker Youssef En-Nesyri.

In parallel with this, Moroccan football developed a full professional structure in its domestic competence, something that did not count until less than three decades ago. The 2011/12 season was the first in which they were played rented in the first and in the Second Division, after an extensive process that had begun in 2000 and in which the clubs, the FRMF, the National Government and the local administrations participated.

This general paradigm change has been rewarded with important sports results in recent years. The most colorful, without a doubt, has been fourth in the Qatar 2022 World Cup. But not the only one. The Sub-23 team was champion of the African Cup of Nations 2023 and won the bronze medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The sub-17 team won the African Cup in 2025 and finished second in 2023, and the SUB-20 was runner-up in 2025.

In addition, Morocco achieved less than two weeks ago the African Nations Championship, which participated selected composed of soccer players who serve in the local leagues: defeated Madagascar 3 to 2 in the final that was played at the Moi de Nairobi International Stadium, the capital of Kenya.

Successes are not limited to men. The selected female selected was runner -up of the last two editions of the African Cup of Nations, in 2022 and 2024, and competed for the first time in a World Cup in the contest that took place in 2023 in Australia and New Zealand (it reached the round of 16). In addition, the Sub-20 first played a World Cup in Colombia 2024 and the U-17, in India 2022.

As if that were not enough, Morocco has also achieved an important development in the futsal. The male selected is African two -time champion of discipline and ended eighth and seventh in the last two World Cups. And the female was enshrined champion of the first edition of the African Cup of Nations in April in Rabat and thus qualified for the first World Cup that will be played in November in the Philippines.