The Morocco-Portugal match, of the 2022 football World Cup, is considered “very high risk” by the Qatari authorities, due to the presence of 10,000 Moroccans without a ticket who will stay in the vicinity of the stadium, revealed this Friday by PSP in the Lusa agency.

Superintendent João Carlos Ribeiro, who led the Portuguese team that has been in that country since the beginning of the competition, to provide support to the local authorities, informed that “less than a thousand Portuguese champions are expected” at the Al Thumama stadium, in contrast to the huge phalanx of Moroccan support.

“More than 20,000 tickets were sold to approved Moroccans, and FIFA later made another 5,000 available. On the other hand, another 10,000 approved Moroccans are expected to travel to Qatar without a ticket”, he informed Lusa.

These 10,000 Moroccans remained outside the enclosure, in an area delimited by the authorities, in order to avoid an invasion attempt like the one that occurred in Morocco-Spain, in the final eight, on Tuesday.

“This game is being considered a very high risk by the authorities. In fact, in 36 years of career, I have never seen a police device with the size of what is being prepared. Several thousand facts will be mobilized”, he confessed.

In this way, the director of the Police Information Department of the PSP advised the Portuguese duly identified with the national colors to arrive at the stadium “three hours before the start of the match”, considering that “the sooner, the safer the arrival will be”, until because “there have already been incidents with the Portuguese approved”.

“People who are going to travel by metro or ‘shuttle’, will then still have to walk about 1.6 kilometers on foot to the stadium, so it is advisable that they travel in groups. by taxi or Uber”, he warned.

Portugal and Morocco will face each other in the quarterfinals of the 2022 World Cup, on Saturday, starting at 18:00 local time (15:00 in Lisbon), at the Al Thumama Stadium, in Doha, in a match that will be led by the Argentine referee Facundo Tello.