The Tangier stadium, also known as Stade Ibn Battouta, is one of Morocco’s leading sports infrastructures. With a long history of hosting national and international competitions, it plays a strategic role in the country’s football development.
Following a renovation program completed ahead of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and as part of Morocco’s preparations as a co-host of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, the stadium now features an approximate capacity of 75,500 seats and a brand-new RCF sound system.
RCF supplied the venue’s sound reinforcement system, comprising more than 350 loudspeakers and 55 DSP-powered amplified controllers, enabling it to meet requirements with less than 1 MW of power.
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The project began through a competitive tender process managed by ANEP, the National Agency for Public Facilities. The performance targets defined in the specifications included a continuous sound pressure level of 100 dB(A) at seating positions and a peak level of 105 dB(A), along with speech intelligibility objectives, stated Rachid Mediouni, Chairman of ENCOM, a major player in AV, SSI, and IT in Morocco and the country’s official distributor of RCF and TT+ Audio.
The installed system consists of 16 main flown arrays, each made up of 12 TT+ Audio GTX 10i IP modules, deployed under the roof canopy at a height of 45 meters above pitch level. Each array is suspended using a custom-engineered support structure designed to withstand wind loads generated by the strong prevailing winds from Gibraltar. The structure also integrates two rear-mounted 18-inch HL 38-S WP subwoofers behind each array, for a total of 32 subwoofers. Under-balcony areas and lower-tier seating are covered by 96 P 4228 loudspeakers and 36 COMPACT C 45 WP loudspeakers.
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Power and processing are provided by 55 XPS 16KD four-channel 96 kHz DSP amplifiers, each rated at 16,000 W continuous output. “The loudspeakers are supported by dedicated presets featuring advanced processing algorithms and are further optimized with specific equalization tailored to the stadium’s challenging acoustics. The amplifiers are managed via RDNet and share audio signals through the Dante Audio-Over-IP protocol. Connectivity is ensured by two independent dedicated networks to provide redundancy and support both emergency systems and entertainment applications”, explained Francesco Venturi of the RCF Engineering Support Group.
The stadium’s large-span roof, similar to that of Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã, posed significant technical challenges. The narrow catwalk beneath the structure limited installation work and equipment access, requiring a solution adapted to existing structural anchoring points and a particularly tight project timeline. The RCF Engineering Support Group collaborated on the system design and commissioning, also carrying out acoustic verification with calibrated instrumentation and assessing speech intelligibility in accordance with IEC standards, Mediouni continued.
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Venturi explained that "achieving world-class sound reinforcement at the Tangier stadium was a major challenge due to the venue’s architectural complexity. From the outset, the goal was to ensure maximum speech intelligibility and uniform coverage across all seating areas, fully complying with the requirements set by FIFA and the Confederation of African Football. Final testing confirmed the system’s high performance, with sound pressure levels in the stands exceeding the specified targets, reaching over 104 dB(A) Leq during testing".
ENCOM highlighted the work of its project team, comprising Abdelouafi El Allali (Technical Manager), Mohamed Ouabi (Project Manager), and Abdelali Nahil (Sound Engineer), both in delivering the system and in providing operational training to the stadium’s technical staff.
We are very pleased with the results. Professionals from other venues who have visited the stadium have praised the sound clarity, and the first events have confirmed the system’s impact. This project sets a new standard for stadium sound in Morocco, Mediouni concluded.
