Senegal Coach Angle: Morocco Fans Face $5,000 World Cup Trip

senegal coach coverage usually starts with a result, but Morocco’s opener against Brazil in New Jersey produced a different number: $5,000 just to make the trip from Marrakech for one fan, even with a free ticket. For supporters trying to follow Morocco at this World Cup, the price of being there put live attendance out of reach for many.

Kamal Ait El Hadj’s $5,000 trip

Kamal Ait El Hadj said his travel from Marrakech for the match would set him back $5,000. He described that as a minimum cost, adding, “It was a minimum for me to be here.”

He also pointed to Morocco’s recent rise, saying, “We had a good World Cup in 2022 and a good African Cup of Nations.” That helps explain why some fans were willing to absorb the cost for Saturday’s opener at the New York New Jersey Stadium’s lower bowl.

Jeboni, Sebti, and the total bill

Other Morocco supporters put the spending even higher. Houssam Jeboni said it would cost him $6,000 to follow the team through the group stage, with stops in New Jersey, Foxborough and Atlanta before flying home via Miami.

Salma Sebti estimated that she and her family would spend at least $15,000 on the trip. Sitting in the second tier behind one of the goals with her husband and daughter, she said, “And inshallah, we stay.”

A 32-year-old Morocco fan who works in the travel industry expected to spend up to $10,000 over 10 days. Against Morocco’s average annual salary, estimated at less than $7,400, those trip costs showed how far even a single World Cup visit can run past what many households can absorb.

New Jersey lines and Morocco’s reach

The crowd did not just pay in cash. Some fans from Morocco faced waits in the immigration line as long as three hours, adding more strain to a trip already built around airfare, hotels and tickets.

Morocco entered the event as the administrative, off-again, on-again champions of Africa and a semifinalist at the last World Cup in Qatar. The country will co-host the tournament in four years with Spain and Portugal, and briefly Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, while also carrying the weight of accusations that it has used its swelling influence to wrest away Senegal’s continental trophy.

For the fans who made the trip, the arithmetic was blunt: a free ticket did not make the World Cup cheap, and for many Moroccans the real price of following the team was measured in months of pay, not matchdays.