★ The Sports Examiner: Chronicling the key competitive, economic and political forces shaping elite sport and the Olympic Movement.★
★ To get the daily Sports Examiner Recap by e-mail: sign up here! ★
≡ FIFA WORLD CUP 2034 ≡
“There will be a real and predictable human cost to awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without obtaining credible guarantees of reform.
“Fans will face discrimination, residents will be forcibly evicted, migrant workers will face exploitation, and many will die.
“FIFA must halt the process until proper human rights protections are in place to avoid worsening an already dire situation.”
That’s Steve Cockburn (GBR), the Amnesty International’s Head of Labour Rights and Sport, in a new warning issued Monday about FIFA’s upcoming award of its 2034 men’s World Cup to Saudi Arabia, which is the only bidder for the event.
FIFA previously placed the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, playing in November and December to avoid the summer heat in the Middle East. The football was some of the best ever played, but the tournament was continuously dogged by criticism from human rights groups concerning abuses in the country of minority groups and the rights of migrant workers.
The next two World Cups will be in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. in 2026, and then a mash-up of Morocco, Portugal and Spain in the to-be-awarded 2030 event – also the sole bid – with opening matches to mark the centennial of the event in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
A 27-page report by Amnesty International and Sports & Rights Alliance delves into the human rights elements of both the 2030 and 2034 bids, “concluding that neither bid has adequately demonstrated how they would address key human rights risks related to the tournaments. It raises major concerns about the seriousness with which the human rights criteria within the bidding process has been taken.”
It asks FIFA:
“The outstanding risks related to the 2030 World Cup mean that FIFA should make awarding the tournament conditional on the development of a far more comprehensive and credible human rights strategy, with meaningful stakeholder consultation. The outstanding risks related to the 2034 bid in Saudi Arabia remain so severe that, in line with FIFA’s own standards, the bid should not be approved until they are fully and credibly addressed through the announcement of major and wide-ranging human rights reforms.”
There is no chance whatsoever that FIFA will accede to these requests, and the next 10 years will see an unending war of words between the two sides.
For the 2030 project in Morocco, Spain and Portugal, the report states that, from the Amnesty and SRA’s view, the required human-rights policies listed by the bids from all three countries fall short:
● “Critically, none the strategies include clear government commitments for legal reform or other measures to uphold human rights in connection with the tournament, or adequate stakeholder engagement. As a result, there remain many unanswered questions and outstanding risks.”
● “There is no commitment, for example, to increase the number of labour inspectors to meet international standards in Portugal and Morocco, nor to repeal legislation criminalizing same-sex acts and extra-marital relations in Morocco. There is no strategy to protect the availability of affordable accommodation for residents in Portugal and Spain, nor details on how people will be protected from forced evictions linked to mass infrastructure projects in Morocco.”
● “No new reforms to laws restricting freedom of expression and assembly have been
announced in any of the host candidates, nor are there any measures to prohibit the improper use of rubber bullets to disperse crowds.”
For 2034 in Saudi Arabia, the report is much more critical, noting that 11 new stadiums are proposed, along with 185,000 new hotel rooms, plus transportation infrastructure, that will be “dependent on a massive workforce of migrant labour.” So:
● “The June 2024 report produced by Amnesty International and the SRA concluded that the human rights risks related to workers’ rights, discrimination, freedom of expression, forced evictions, policing and privacy in Saudi Arabia were so severe that ‘it is hard to see how a World Cup could be hosted in the country without widespread violations, unless fundamental reforms are agreed and complied with.’”
● “The human rights assessment and strategy provided alongside Saudi Arabia’s Bid Book are deeply flawed and full of critical omissions. The ‘Independent Human Rights Assessment’ produced by AS&H Clifford Chance – the Saudi partner of global law firm Clifford Chance – includes no analysis of some of the most severe and well-known human rights risks in Saudi Arabia, completely omitting issues such as the repression of the right to freedom of expression, the criminalization of same-sex acts, well-documented forced evictions, the lack of a minimum wage, or the prohibition of trade unions.
“It also underplays the serious impact on workers of the country’s Kafala sponsorship system. The subsequent Human Rights Strategy submitted by the [Saudi Arabia Football Federation] then, with some exceptions, either makes largely the same omissions, or includes only general and non-specific commitments to reform. Clifford Chance did not respond to a letter from 11 human rights organisations highlighting these serious flaws, other than to say it would be ‘inappropriate’ to comment further and sharing links to company policies.”
The report’s conclusion asks FIFA “to separate the voting process for the two tournaments, and to postpone the 2034 vote until a credible human rights strategy is developed” and “not vote to award the 2034 FIFA World Cup to Saudi Arabia unless credible and comprehensive reforms are agreed before [the FIFA] Congress.”
Most of all, it blames FIFA:
“FIFA undermined its leverage by pursuing a selection process without competitive bids or separate votes. It has also severely limited the scope of the human rights assessment in Saudi Arabia, in contravention of its own human rights policies and responsibilities. [National associations] appear not to have taken the process seriously enough. Unless this is urgently rectified, we will again see the predictable and preventable human rights violations experienced in past tournaments, perhaps on an even greater scale.”
The report will have no impact on FIFA, and the vote on 11 December will move ahead. But the battle lines from now to 2034 have been drawn, and the report sets the stage for a roiling argument about people and rights in these countries, using the FIFA World Cup as a focal point. Now everyone knows.
¶
★ Receive our exclusive, weekday TSX Recap by e-mail by clicking here.
★ Sign up a friend to receive the TSX Recap by clicking here.
★ Please consider a donation here to keep this site going.
For our updated, 885-event International Sports Calendar for the rest of 2024, 2025 and beyond, by date and by sport, click here!
Sign-up for our exclusive TSX Report, your Olympic-sport briefing, delivered right to your inbox: it’s FREE!
