'Shameful' Saudi Arabia to be 2034 World Cup hosts. It's a 'moment of great danger' for human rights

Saudi Arabia will host the men’s football World Cup 2034 – a decision slammed by human rights advocates as “shameful,” “corrupt” and “blatant sportswashing”.

The gulf nation was the only bidder for the tournament, after a fast-tracked 14-month process that effectively eliminated serious counter-bids.  

Today’s confirmation was cinched by an acclamation of football nations rather than a vote. Dissenting parties couldn’t even vote against the bid – the most they could do was withhold their applause.

21 organisations – include Saudi diaspora human rights organizations, migrant workers’ groups from Nepal and Kenya, international trade unions, and fans’ representatives – have published a joint statement condemning the move as a “moment of great danger” for human rights.

“FIFA’s reckless decision to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without ensuring adequate human rights protections are in place will put many lives at risk,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of labour rights and sport.

“Based on clear evidence to date, FIFA knows workers will be exploited and even die without fundamental reforms in Saudi Arabia, and yet has chosen to press ahead regardless. The organization risks bearing a heavy responsibility for many of the human rights abuses that will follow.”

The tournament will be a “disaster” for human rights, warns Nick McGeehan, the co-director of FairSquare, with thousands of construction workers likely to die while constructing football stadiums.

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“We all saw what happened in Qatar 2022 [when at least 6,000 migrant workers died building stadiums]. The same thing is going to happen on arguably a much bigger scale,” he warned.

“Workers will be worked in what is essentially a toxic sauna, worked exceptionally long hours, paid exceptionally badly, and many of them – perhaps tens of thousands – will die.”

Women and LGBTQ+ people also experience extreme repression in the country, where ‘homosexual activity’ is punishable by death and women can’t travel without a male guardian’s approval.  

“Saudi sportswashing has become so pervasive that the meaning of the term is sometimes forgotten,” said Chai Patel is the director of policy and advocacy at Reprieve.

“This is one of the world’s most brutal authoritarian regimes spending vast sums of money to create a false image, to distract from worsening repression and state violence.”

How did Saudi Arabia end up the only bidder for the Fifa World Cup?

Fifa have carefully paved the road to Riyadh, critics claim.

“The bidding process undermines good governance and reform,” said Football Association of Norway president Lise Klaveness.

McGeehan is blunter: “There is a deep structural rot at the heart of Fifa. It is a massive system of patronage. Money secures power secures money secures power secures money. It can no longer be reformed; it is completely unfit for purpose.”

The process to ensure Saudi would win has had several steps.

Firstly, in 2023, Fifa announced that the 2030 World Cup would be hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain, with opening matches staged in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.

The bumper list of hosts – six nations – marks the tournament’s centenary. But conveniently, it also excluded South America, Europe, Africa and Central/North America from bidding on the 2034 World Cup, because Fifa rotation rules forbid consecutive tournaments in one region.

Fifa initiated the bidding process for the 2034 World Cup the day after it announced the 2030 hosts – and gave nations just 25 days to apply.

Saudi Arabia already had their bid ready, which Fifa scored a record-high 419.8 out of 500. Australia and New Zealand, who were the only potential rivals, couldn’t meet the bid requirements in time.

Saudi Arabia contracted a Riyadh-based consultancy to conduct an “independent human rights assessment”. Fifa deemed the country “medium risk” for human rights, a designation slammed by Amnesty International as a “whitewash”.

“As expected, Fifa’s evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s World Cup bid is an astonishing whitewash of the country’s atrocious human rights record,” said Cockburn from Amnesty.

“There are no meaningful commitments that will prevent workers from being exploited, residents from being evicted or activists from being arrested.”

But the Saudi money will keep rolling in to Fifa: earlier this year, the footballing organisation announced Saudi Aramco as its “global partner”, furnishing it with $400m over four years.

What are the human rights concerns in Saudi Arabia?

The Saudi royal family will use the tournament as “a great public relations coup,” said McGeehan.

“Mohammed bin Salman [both crown prince and prime minister of Saudi Arabia – no, seriously] will try to present it as Saudi Arabia becoming this progressive, relatively tolerant open society. When, in fact, reality is the complete opposite.”

Same-sex relationships and acts are criminalised under the country’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, with punishments ranging from fines to flogging to the death penalty.

According to Human Rights Watch, the country’s laws treat women as “persistent legal minors”.

Every Saudi woman must have a male guardian, normally a father or husband, but in some cases a brother or a son, who has the power to make a range of critical decisions on her behalf.

For migrant workers, the tournament could be a “death sentence”, McGeehan adds.

Many come to Saudi Arabia through the Kafala system, an exploitative sponsorship-based employment framework that ties foreign workers to their employers. The conditions are very poor: more than 1,500 Bangladeshi workers died in the gulf country in 2022 alone, a rate of more than four a day.

“By ignoring the clear evidence of severe human rights risks, Fifa is likely to bear much responsibility for the violations and abuses that will take place over the coming decade,” said Cockburn.

“Fundamental human rights reforms are urgently required in Saudi Arabia, or the 2034 World Cup will be inevitably tarnished by exploitation, discrimination and repression.”

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