Saudi King Fahd voices backing to Morocco's World Cup bid

King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia has voiced his country's full backing to Morocco's bid to host the 2006 World Cup.

"It is a source of joy for your second country, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to extend its full backing for this candidature," King Fahd said in a message to King Mohammed VI.

The success of this bid will be a success for the Arab-Islamic Ummah (Nation), as it meets the aspirations of the youth, the Saudi king said.

Thanks to its reputation and rank in the community of nations, Morocco is perfectly able to host the final rounds of the World Cup 2006, he said.

King Fahd underlined that guidelines were issued to Prince Sultan bin Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, Chairman of the Saudi Youth Protection body and President of the Arab Sports Union and of the Arab Football Union, to do his best to back the Moroccan bid.

Arab and Muslim nations and a large number of African countries are rallied behind Morocco to win the bid.

Morocco, a two-time bidder to host the football World Cup finals-- in 1994 and 1998--, has devised a 560-million dollar plan to build new and modern stadia, meeting all the requirements of the FIFA, the world football governing body.

A FIFA delegation that inspected last Morocco's sports, road and telecom facilities said it was very impressed by the Moroccan candidacy file.

FIFA will choose next July the host country of the competition from a group of five nations, namely Morocco, South Africa, Brazil, England and Germany.