After the Can, what Morocco really won (by Cheikh Gora DIOP) January 19, 2026
The final whistle at the Moulay Abdallah stadium in Rabat closed the Can Maroc 2025, putting an end to a month of celebration. Beyond the spectacle on the pitches and in the stands, this 35th edition leaves above all a major lesson: the African Cup of Nations is no longer just a sporting event. It has become a powerful indicator of the transformations underway on the continent.
Alongside big posters and stars who shone, it revealed several facets. The capacity of a country to orchestrate, simultaneously, popular fervor and organizational precision, the intensity of the game and logistical mastery, celebration and security. On this invisible but decisive ground, Morocco responded.
By fully assuming its role as host country, the Kingdom has placed this edition in a broader trajectory, a sort of dress rehearsal: Can 2025, Club World Cup 2029, then World Cup 2030 on the horizon, co-organized with Spain and Portugal. In this dense schedule, reliability is no longer a simple argument; it becomes strategic capital.
Once the competition is over, Moroccan ambition appears more clearly. It is not limited to the organizational success of a continental tournament. It can be seen in the solidity of the infrastructures at all levels, in the assumed projection towards the very high level, but also in a desire to raise the overall experience for players and supporters to the standards of major international competitions.
Certain clues, seemingly secondary, nevertheless provided the most telling signals. The pitches, long the Achilles heel of African competitions, have resisted, even under demanding climatic conditions. The game was able to express itself, the show was not altered.
For technicians, this detail is not one: it reflects a tangible move upmarket, felt in the field. And this is perhaps one of the reasons why all the favorites were there for the round of 16.
Even more striking was the attention paid to humans. In Tangier, during the Senegal and Mali quarter-final, blind supporters followed the match using a device combining audio description and tactile technology. An initiative that is discreet in the statistical assessments, but strong in its symbolic significance.
She reminds us that the success of an event is also measured by its capacity to include, to open, to bring together without excluding.
The figures reinforced this general impression. Increase in air traffic, sustained attendance in the stadiums, visible dynamism in the host cities: the Can acted as an accelerator of flows and activities, part of an already favorable tourist dynamic.
Beyond major macroeconomic indicators, it is also the local micro-economies, cafes, transport, shops, urban services which directly benefited from the event.
Added to this is another victory, less visible, but just as strategic: media centrality. The Can in Morocco generated extensive international coverage, with more than 5,400 accreditation requests registered by Caf and more than 3,800 media actually accredited.
The battle for the screens confirms this change in scale, with nearly 1,000 requests related to television broadcasting rights. An exhibition that strengthens the image of the Kingdom well beyond the field.
Morocco demonstrated, during this Can, that the success of a host country is not measured only by the images broadcast around the world. It is also built in the fluidity of travel, the quality of the welcome and the ability to transform the excitement into lasting memories for the participants.
On this level, Can 2025 has left an imprint. The tournament finished, Morocco can look at this edition as a milestone. Not an end, but a stage.
That of a country that tests, adjusts and projects sport as a lever of development, influence and transformation.
Ironically, it is at the moment when the Can enters its maturity phase, captures the attention of sponsors and establishes itself in the global media landscape that Caf decides to switch it to a meeting every four years from 2028.
