Soccer-FIFA must halt Saudi World Cup bid due to human rights issues, says Amnesty

By Rohith Nair

FIFA must halt the process to pick Saudi Arabia as hosts of the 2034 World Cup unless major human rights reforms are announced before the vote next month, Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) have said.

Votes are due to be held at the FIFA Congress next month to approve the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, though each has only a single bid. A combined bid of Morocco, Spain and Portugal is the sole bid for 2030, while Saudi Arabia is the lone bidder for 2034.

Amnesty and the SRA said they had evaluated the human rights strategies proposed by the bidding countries and concluded in a new report that neither bid adequately outlined how they would meet the human rights standards required by FIFA.

They said the risks were far greater in Saudi Arabia and hosting the tournament in the Gulf country would lead to "severe and widespread" human rights violations.

"There will be a real and predictable human cost to awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without obtaining credible guarantees of reform," Steve Cockburn, Amnesty's head of labour rights and sport, said in a statement.

"Fans will face discrimination... 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."

FIFA said the bid evaluation reports for the 2030 and 2034 World Cup would be published ahead of its extraordinary Congress on Dec. 11.

"FIFA is implementing thorough bidding processes for the 2030 and 2034 editions of the FIFA World Cup," a FIFA spokesperson said.

"(It is) in line with previous processes for the selection of hosts for the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada and the 2027 Women's World Cup in Brazil."

DISCRIMINATION CONCERNS

The World Cup hosts are set to be officially appointed at the FIFA Congress and Saudi Arabia's bid is almost certain to succeed due to the absence of any other expressions of interest before FIFA's deadline late last year.

A major cause for concern has been whether LGBTQ people will be discriminated against in the Kingdom, where people can be sentenced to death if it is proved that they have engaged in same-sex sexual acts.

Hammad Albalawi, head of Saudi Arabia's World Cup bid unit, said in September that LGBTQ fans were welcome and their privacy would be respected, pointing to the millions of fans who had travelled to the country for sporting events in recent years.

"We are committed to cultivating a competition environment free of discrimination, and striving to eradicate discrimination based on protected characteristics," Saudi Arabia said in its World Cup bid book.

"Working with our government partners, we will verify that our laws align with our international commitments and implement necessary enhancements."

MIGRANT WORKERS

Saudi Arabia's bid book stated 15 stadiums would be built or refurbished for the World Cup, with construction set to be completed by 2032, while more than 185,000 additional hotel rooms would be built ahead of the tournament.

Cockburn said Saudi Arabia would need a vast number of migrant workers to deliver its World Cup ambitions in a country which has neither established a minimum wage for non-citizens nor introduced measures to prevent worker deaths.

The issue is similar to the worker deaths in neighbouring Qatar, which hosted the 2022 World Cup and built new stadiums with the help of migrant labour.

Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that at least 6,500 migrant workers -- many of them working on World Cup projects -- had died in Qatar after it won the right to stage the event, but the number was disputed by the Gulf nation.

"We are dedicated to upholding our commitments concerning forced labour, child labour, non-discrimination and occupational safety and health. We will strive to ensure our partners uphold these standards," Saudi Arabia said in its bid book.

Amnesty's report also said that the repression of free speech was a cause for concern, with Cockburn saying there was no serious commitment to reform.

"Saudi Arabia's human rights strategy does not address the government's severe repression of free speech and the continued imprisonment of individuals who have been sentenced to decades in prison merely for their expression," Cockburn said.

Saudi Arabia is spending billions to transform its global image from a country known for strict religious restrictions and human rights abuses into a tourism and entertainment hub.

However, it narrowly failed to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council last month.