Morocco intends to raise the level of women’s football and play a major role in international competitions. A framework agreement increases budgets and structures the national championships.
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) has signed an objective contract with the National Women’s Football League (LNFF), the regional leagues and the DTN (National Technical Directorate) for the development of women’s football.
The contract includes, in its sports component, the launch of a professional championship (D1, D2) from next season. It provides for a national U17 championship (under 17) and regional championships for youth categories.
In its financial component, the agreement provides for an increase in the annual subsidy reserved for women’s football clubs (1.2 million dirhams, nearly 110,000 euros, for D1 clubs and 800,000 dirhams, 73,000 euros, for D2 clubs) provided they respect the terms of the contract.
The agreement plans to set aside 100,000 dirhams for regional leagues for the development of women’s football. It provides support for the financial and administrative management of clubs.
Finally, the contract has a technical component, which underlines its ambitions. The aim is to increase the number of female football players to 90,000 by 2024 and to train 10,000 technical managers in women’s football clubs. He intends to improve the general level of the National pro championship (D1, D2), that of the regional league championship and that of young people.
This contract was initialed by the president of the FRMF, Fouzi Lekjaa, the president of the LNFF, Khadija Ila, as well as the DTN, Osian Roberts.
In his speech on this occasion, Fouzi Lekjaa praised “the considerable efforts” made by all stakeholders in Moroccan football for the development of women’s football.
For its part, the FRMF oversees the development of this discipline through the development of a participatory work strategy aimed at “real support for the promotion of national women’s football”.
Specific goals for each club!
For her part, Khadija Ila explained that this contract mainly aims at the development of the discipline in Morocco, by widening the base of practitioners, restructuring clubs.
Finally, Osian Roberts underlined that membership in this “essential” project is in line with the vision of FIFA and CAF calling on all stakeholders to meet all the appropriate conditions to allow the Moroccan girl to play football.
Clubs will have to fulfill contracts of objectives. “For example, a club that operates in a regional league must have a senior team, U17 and U15,” said Omar Khyari, Federation adviser for women’s football, interviewed by RFI.
And according to these objectives, the club will receive a grant which should enable it to build competitive teams, “which was not the case before, the women’s clubs had a lot of problems”.
There is also a subsidy for second division clubs and financial support for third division clubs which are amateurs. “An important element, because our goal is to have a country where women’s football has a lot of female players.”
Looking for sponsors!
In what some are already calling a “Marshall Plan” for women’s football, professional women’s clubs will also receive aid for salaries, the grid of which has been revised upwards.
And above all, the Federation will be looking for sponsors for women’s clubs. In total, the annual budget allocated to women’s football in Morocco would increase from around 1 million to 6 million euros (nearly 66 million dirhams).
In addition, the Federation, a new fact, will seek sponsors for women’s clubs. Given the success of men’s football, which is doing very well in Morocco, the goal is to gradually establish a virtuous circle, where women’s football performances will attract audiences and advertisers.
Women’s football is already very present in Morocco, which includes various championships and several training centers. The National Women’s A and U20 teams are both champions of the North African Football Union (UNAF) Tournament.
The U20 and U17 women’s national team are very well advanced in the Women’s World Cup qualifiers, especially the U17 team which is close to qualifying for the World Cup.
The essential contribution of this “Marshall Plan” is to support and structure initiatives and budgets. Morocco plans to participate in the next Women’s World Cup in 2023, as well as the Olympic Games in Paris, scheduled for 2024.
