"The choice to start with Africa was not by chance, because among the pillars of Morocco's foreign policy, we find African cooperation”, reads the article published by the daily newspaper “The Financial Gazette” on Sunday, noting that Morocco which has chosen to lead by example, is now at the heart of African football.

“When the Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) signed agreements with the football federations of Burkina Faso, Gambia, Rwanda, and Burundi back in 2015, few would have guessed that this was the start of an era of football diplomacy that will result in the transformation of the beautiful game on the continent”, adds the article.

It says that “Six years since those agreements were signed, more than 40 such deals have been concluded with federations from across the continental, distinguishing Morocco as a leader in progressive foreign policy on the continent”.

“A very large majority of these agreements have been extended in 2019, which illustrates the importance and efficiency of this type of partnership agreement”, adds the article.

Moreover, the same source stresses that The institutional return of the Kingdom to the African Union, thanks to the visionary diplomacy of HM King Mohammed VI, “constitutes a solid basis for the FRMF to decide to make this strategic choice to strengthen the international cooperation policy open to its counterparts in Africa”.

“The construction of sports infrastructure, the exchange of best practices, the training of technical and administrative staff, the hosting of training courses for the preparation of national selections, and also the arbitration or the organization of friendly matches between the different categories of national teams are some of the areas touched by the partnerships between Morocco and its fellow African collaborators”, notes the article.

“This international strategy of the FRMF is not only about signing conventions, but above all about carrying out actions on the ground to develop African soccer”, emphasizes the article.

“Several teams prepared for CHAN 2018 in Morocco, while five teams qualified for the CANU20 in Mauritania prepared in Morocco, including Niger, Gambia, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon”, adds the newspaper.

It notes that “Morocco also puts at the disposal of the African federations and their players the skills at the medical level, offering the possibility of treatment at the state of the art clinic of the Mohammed VI Football Complex”.

Citing the president of the FRMF, Fouzi Lekjaa, the newspaper says that African national teams are welcomed “to come at the time they wish to pass internships and take advantage of technological developments and performance that exists at the Mohammed VI Complex because in any case, the success at the level of our continent can only be collective".