Saudi Arabia to host 2034 FIFA World Cup despite human rights sportswashing concerns
By Luke Cooper
Topic:FIFA World Cup
11m ago11 minutes agoWed 11 Dec 2024 at 7:15pm
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In short:
Saudi Arabia's sole bid to host the 2034 men's football World Cup has been approved and granted by FIFA's Congress.
Human rights advocates have accused the Middle Eastern nation of sportswashing its human rights record to host the event.
What's next?
Advocacy organisations plan to lobby current and former players to highlight alleged human rights abuses that have occurred in Saudi Arabia.
FIFA has announced Saudi Arabia as the host for the 2034 men's World Cup, despite a growing number of organisations criticising the country's human rights record and accusing it of sportswashing.
The 211 nations represented at a 3-hour FIFA Extraordinary Congress meeting on Thursday voted in favour of the Saudi bid, as well as the proposed hosts for the 2030 World Cup.
How has Saudi Arabia won the 2034 World Cup hosting rights?
Saudi Arabia became the sole bidder after a bid from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) failed to gain support and a joint bid from Australia and New Zealand was withdrawn.
Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal sitting at a desk with his hands joined under his chin while wearing a white gown
Minister of Sports, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, attended a FIFA event to mark the announcement of Saudi Arabia as the 2034 World Cup host. (Reuters: Saudi Arabia Football Association)
The Middle Eastern country also withdrew a separate bid to host the 2030 World Cup, which FIFA announced would be played across Africa, Europe and South America.
In an unprecedented move, FIFA President Gianni Infantino declared Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay will host the first-ever six-nation World Cup to mark the event's 100th anniversary.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal wearing white and brown robes and shawls while smiling with hands raised
Saudi Arabia will become just the second Middle Eastern nation to host the FIFA World Cup. (Reuters: Saudi Arabia Football Association)
FIFA rules say the event should be cycled through different host continents every four years.
With the 2026 World Cup to be played in North America across the USA, Canada and Mexico, the 2034 event had to be hosted in Asia or Oceania.
Without Australia or the Asian conglomerate, Saudi Arabia had a clear run to become just the second Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup after Qatar in 2022.
A wide shot from the air showing the cityscape of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia at dusk with one tall silver tower building
The city of Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, has been approved as one of the five host cities for the 2034 FIFA men's World Cup. (Reuters: Mohammed Benmansour)
Football broadcaster, human rights advocate and former Socceroo Craig Foster said the Saudi bid had emulated Qatar by using "state funds and state-owned assets to purchase soft power and influence within sport".
"They've spent probably around a decade now starting to purchase influence … by placing government officials and royal family members on the boards of a vast number of global sporting bodies," Mr Foster said.
"They've been able to persuade the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, to be their greatest supporter and in doing so, he has fundamentally changed the whole dynamic of world cup bids.
"Rather than an open bidding process where other bidders, which might have included Australia, have an equal opportunity to press their claim in a transparent manner … What Infantino has done is engineered the entire process to place Saudi Arabia in a position where they are the only reasonable candidate."
Mr Foster said Mr Infantino had grown supportive of the Middle East because of the large amount of sponsorship revenue FIFA could generate there, and the support he could garner from countries like Saudi Arabia to re-elect him as FIFA president in the future.
Craig Foster speaking while wearing a dark blazer and shirt in front of yellow LED roof lights
Craig Foster has joined human rights organisations in accusing Saudi Arabia of sportswashing its human rights record. (AAP: Mick Tsikas)
"The Middle East is a very large part of the Asian Football Confederation bloc, I would say the most powerful, and therefore that also delivers to Infantino a very important bloc of votes for his continued candidacy," he said.
The Saudi bid promised 15 stadiums, including eight yet to be built, major road, rail and airport upgrades in five cities, and the construction of a futuristic city named Neom.
FIFA gave the bid a technical assessment score of 4.2 out of 5 — the highest in the history of the World Cup.
Human rights organisations have rejected that assessment, saying Saudi Arabia's human rights record is unacceptable and the bid presents a direct risk to the lives of workers who will construct the 2034 World Cup.
What have human rights groups said?
Qatari officials have acknowledged up to 500 migrant workers are known to have died during construction for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
Amnesty International Australia says it believes the total number of migrant worker deaths in Qatar is likely far higher than reported figures, and fears the same could happen in Saudi Arabia.
Human Rights Watch earlier this month accused the country of charging illegal and excessive recruitment fees for migrant labour, wage theft and allowing people to work in extreme heat.
"Saudi authorities are systematically failing to protect them from and remedy these abuses," Human Rights Watch said.
"This blatant failure to protect migrant workers creates a near certainty that the 2034 World Cup … will be stained with pervasive rights violations."
A Human Rights Watch report claimed 13.4 million migrant workers were in Saudi Arabia, mostly from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Yemen.
Despite labour law reforms introduced in 2021, Human Rights Watch said it had obtained government figures showing 884 Bangladeshis died in Saudi Arabia between January and July 2024, with 80 per cent of the deaths attributed to "natural causes".
The report also said the risks to people's lives were worsened by pressure to meet "unrealistic, tight deadlines for projects".
"Every day, one or two workers faint, including during mornings and evenings, sometimes on the way to work, sometimes while working," one anonymous person, who was working to build the city of Neom, said in the report.
Ry Atkinson, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Australia, said "Saudi Arabia's human rights record is pretty atrocious" and accused the country of using "sportswashing as a really effective strategy to gloss over those abuses".
"What it really says is that money talks and money is powerful," Mr Atkinson said.
Gianni Infantino in a pink-lit room sitting on white armchairs next to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman
FIFA president Gianni Infantino (centre) has grown supportive of Saudi Arabia's footballing interests, promoted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left). (Reuters: Saudi Press Agency)
FIFA contracted global law firm AH&S Clifford Chance to assess the human rights context around the Saudi bid, but human rights advocates alleged its final report excluded a raft of abuses known to have occurred in the country.
"For Infantino and the FIFA Council and members to accept that is absolutely disgraceful," Mr Foster said.
"That is what you call actual, genuine sportswashing."
What does Saudi Arabia say?
Hammad Albalawi, the head of Saudi Arabia's bid, said the country had made significant progress in human rights while aiming to attract "more fans than ever" to the 48-team event.
"We have come a long way and there's still a long way to go," Mr Albalawi told Reuters.
"Our principle is to develop something that is right for us. Our journey started in 2016, not because of the World Cup bid," Mr Albalawi told Reuters.
"We've launched initiatives granting employees the freedom to move between employers. Documents of these employees are now uploaded into government systems, ensuring they have rights within their contracts.
Saudi Arabia's Hammad Albalawi sitting in a cream colour chair wearing a black gown and red head covering on a blue background
The head of the 2034 Saudi Arabia World Cup bid unit, Hammad Albalawi, says the country is making progress on its human rights record. (Reuters: Mohammed Benmansour)
"Only a month and a half ago, the government announced a new government insurance policy … These are substantive examples, not because we're bidding for the World Cup, but because this is part of Vision 2030. This is part of who we are and what we are committed to."
What could happen next?
The 2034 FIFA men's World Cup will be built and hosted in Saudi Arabia — that is pretty much a given.
Mr Atkinson said groups like Amnesty International were going to continue lobbying FIFA and sporting bodies for change in the human rights space around major events.
"What we do implore is that people use their voices to raise these concerns and make sure that these events don't just get washed through and that there's no positive benefit that comes from them," he said.
"We need to use these events for change."
In the lead-up to the 2022 World Cup, global footballing stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were actively lobbied by advocates to abstain from playing in Qatar due to the country's human rights record.
They both ignored those calls and played in Qatar.
Mr Foster, who worked as a broadcaster in Qatar but donated his wage from the tournament to the families of migrant workers who died in constructing the event, said footballers who profit off world cups should be highlighting Saudi Arabia's human rights record.
"I've issued a challenge saying to the current and former players, you've made a living [off football]," he said.
"Now's the time that you need to do something and if you're silent because you think one day you might be able to go and play in Saudi Arabia or you might be able to work in Saudia Arabia and get $100 million or $200 million like Cristiano Ronaldo, then I think you've got some questions to ask yourself."
Posted11m ago11 minutes agoWed 11 Dec 2024 at 7:15pm
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