Portugal’s PM in Lanzarote forging various memoranda of understanding with Spanish counterpart
Portugal’s prime minister said on Wednesday that the joint application of Portugal, Spain and Morocco to host the 2030 football World Cup is an important message to the world, symbolising proximity between two shores of the Mediterranean and two continents.
On Tuesday, the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, announced that the African country will be joining Portugal and Spain, which aligned with Ukraine in a high-profile bid to host the 2030 football World Cup.
Speaking at the end of the Portuguese-Spanish summit in Lanzarote this week, António Costa considered the bid “is an important message to the world”, a symbol of the proximity between the two shores of the Mediterranean and between two continents.
Mr Costa has been very positive throughout the summit; batting away the recent comments by President Marcelo that his government was “tired” and “re-heated” (meaning not very fresh).
Now, with this World Cup bid, he almost ran away with his own enthusiasm: “This joint candidacy of the Iberian Peninsula with Morocco has a very important message for the world, particularly for Africa and Europe. We are two neighbouring continents, which want to work together. We are not two continents which are distant or which want to wage war against each other”, he said.
António Costa stressed that the two continents “want to celebrate together the practice of sport and all the values associated with it: healthy, fair, regulated competition”.
“This is the first time that there is a joint bid between the two shores of the Mediterranean, between Africa and Europe. Surely it will help to unite that which nothing should separate us”, he stressed, reportedly receiving exuberant applause.
Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez was more measured in his comments, simply describing the joint candidacy as “a very good positive message”. There was no mention of its importance to the world – at a time when the world is probably much more focused on the agonising contagion that seems to be running through the banks – nor of war.
Source material: Lusa
