Spanish Coalition Party Asks Spain to Rethink 2030 World Cup With Morocco
Sumar filed a nonbinding motion in Parliament after tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
BARCELONA — The junior partner in Spain's governing coalition is calling on the country to reconsider co-hosting the 2030 World Cup with Morocco, days after a migration crisis at the border of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
Sumar, a small left-wing party that governs alongside the Socialists, presented a motion in Parliament on Wednesday asking Spain's sports authorities to revisit the plan to stage the tournament with Morocco and Portugal. The motion would be nonbinding.
Sumar holds 26 of the 350 seats in Parliament, but its position carries weight because the party holds ministerial posts in the government of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The party said it hopes to build support for the measure, though backing beyond other small left-wing parties appears unlikely at this point.
More than 80 people died on Thursday and Friday while attempting a mass crossing by swimming around a breakwater and border fence from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast. Roughly 72,000 people crossed into the enclave last week, in a surge fueled by social media posts encouraging people to make the attempt. Spain's Interior Ministry says about 2,000 people remain in Ceuta, including 1,000 minors.
Sánchez has publicly defended Moroccan authorities, saying they moved quickly to help return nearly all of those who crossed. He has faced criticism from other European Union members over the crisis. Opposition figures and Spain's defense minister have asked Morocco for a fuller explanation of its response.
Nahuel González, one of the Sumar lawmakers who authored the motion, accused Morocco of using migration for political leverage. "The Moroccan state, the Moroccan monarchy, does not respect human rights, it uses migrants to exercise political pressure," he told the Spanish broadcaster TVE, according to remarks translated from Spanish.
Asked whether Sumar wants Morocco stripped of hosting duties or Spain to withdraw, González did not clarify. "We ask that Spain's sports institutions reconsider this World Cup that is to be shared with Morocco because we believe that we must defend human rights," he said.
In Portugal, the small party Livre sent a letter to Prime Minister Luís Montenegro and the president of the Portuguese Football Federation calling the tournament "unsustainable" after the Ceuta crisis and urging a reassessment.
Most of the 2030 World Cup is to be co-hosted by Spain, Morocco and Portugal, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay each staging one game to mark the centenary of the first World Cup, held in Uruguay in 1930.
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