Why is Morocco abbreviated as MAR in the World Cup? What to know

[ASFN Admin]

Looking at the scoreboard for the Scotland vs. Morocco game and Googling "why is Morocco abbreviated as MAR?"

For English speakers, it's confusing. But if you spoke French, it would make much more sense.

The abbreviations are FIFA codes, a three letter code assigned to each county to differentiate them during the tournament. Most are like Scotland, representing the first three letters of the country’s name, but some break that pattern or reflect a non-English name for the country.

Morocco is called Maroc in French, hence the MAR.

Scotland’s abbreviation is SCO and Morrocco's is MAR.

They also might be different to distinguish between countries that would otherwise start with the same three letters, like Iran and Iraq.

What are all the FIFA codes?​

• Algeria (ALG)
• Argentina (ARG)
• Australia (AUS)
• Austria (AUT)
• Belgium (BEL)
• Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH)
• Brazil (BRA)
• Cabo Verde (CPV)
• Canada (CAN)
• Colombia (COL)
• Croatia (CRO)
• Curacao (CUW)
• Czechia (CZE)
• DR Congo (COD)
• Ecuador (ECU)
• Egypt (EGY)
• England (ENG)
• France (FRA)
• Germany (GER)
• Ghana (GHA)
• Haiti (HAI)
• Iran (IRN)
• Iraq (IRQ)
• Ivory Coast (CIV)
• Japan (JPN)
• Jordan (JOR)
• Mexico (MEX)
• Morocco (MAR)
• Netherlands (NED)
• New Zealand (NZL)
• Norway (NOR)
• Panama (PAN)
• Paraguay (PAR)
• Portugal (POR)
• Qatar (QAT)
• Saudi Arabia (KSA)
• Scotland (SCO)
• Senegal (SEN)
• South Africa (RSA)
• South Korea (KOR)
• Spain (ESP)
• Sweden (SWE)
• Switzerland (SUI)
• Tunisia (TUN)
• Turkey (TUR)
• United States (USA)
• Uruguay (URU)
• Uzbekistan (UZB)

USA Today contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Morocco's World Cup abbreviations MAR explained

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