CNN
—
With five years and eleven months left until the 2030 FIFA World Cup final, the design of the stadium that will host the match has finally been unveiled.
The Grand Stade Hassan II football stadium in Morocco – one of three countries hosting the tournament alongside Spain and Portugal – is being touted by designers Oualolou + Choi and Populous as potentially “the largest football stadium in the world” and is said to have a capacity of 115,000 spectators.
The stadium will be built on a 100-hectare site in El Mansouria, a town north of Casablanca. According to Populous, its design is reminiscent of a “moussem,” a type of traditional communal tent. The Grande Stade’s version will consist of an aluminum grid that covers both the fans inside the stadium and the tiered gardens on the outside of the stands and a botanical garden on the ground floor.
The design, according to Tarik Oualalou, design director and founding partner of Oualalou + Choi, “is deeply rooted in Moroccan culture with its traditions and contemporary expressions,” he wrote in a press release. “It is rooted in ancient and primordial figures: the moussem, the tent and the garden, as well as the topography and landscape of Morocco.”
The configuration appears to be tailored to FIFA World Cups: the stands themselves will be divided into zones for free-entry fans at each end (each with almost 30,000 seats), while the main area will be reserved for boxes, hospitality, VIPs and VVIPs, the press release states.
“(It) will be a truly iconic, groundbreaking venue for Morocco and football itself, and will become one of the greatest stadiums in the world,” said Christopher Lee, Managing Director of Populous EMEA.
So how would the Grand Stade Hassan II compare to other stadiums with incredible spaciousness?
The largest cricket stadium in existence is the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad, India, which was expanded to a capacity of 132,000 in 2021. The largest American football stadium, on the other hand, belongs to the Michigan Wolverines of the NCAA and has space for over 107,000 fans.
The largest football stadium in the world is a multi-purpose stadium and one of the most inaccessible in the world: the Rungrado May 1 Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea. Opened in 1989, it officially has a capacity of 150,000 spectators, but renovations in the 2010s led to a study by the website Stadium Database, which estimated that the stadium now holds only 114,000 fans.
Is it a coincidence that the Grande Stade Hassan II will have 1,000 more seats? Maybe not.
Populous is no newcomer to building large sports structures: the company was responsible for building the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Emirates Stadium in London, a dozen Olympic stadiums and other stadiums around the world.
After five unsuccessful bids to host the FIFA World Cup, Morocco finally got its foot in the door when FIFA announced in October 2023 that the country would co-host the 2030 finals with Spain and Portugal. It is an unusual, extended tournament format that will also include a commemorative match each in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to mark the 100th anniversary of the FIFA World Cup.
The design team of the Grande Stade Hassan II says the stadium will be “fully compliant with FIFA competitions” and will have “the potential” to host “the final” of the 2030 World Cup. The final decision on which site FIFA will select is yet to be made, although Real Madrid’s newly renovated Estadio Santiago Bernabéu is widely believed to be the favorite.
Preparations for earthworks on the site outside Casablanca have begun, say Oualolou + Choi and Populous, so expect to see this grand design come to life in the coming years.
