Saudi Arabia faces huge global scandal

The only candidate in the running for the 2034 organization, Saudi Arabia will host the largest world Football competition on its soil. On December 11, FIFA is due to announce the bids for the 2030 and 2034 World Cups live from Zurich, as part of an extraordinary virtual congress. It is a logical continuation of the development of Saudi football after the arrivals of multiple stars such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Sadio Mané, N'Golo Kanté, Karim Benzema and Neymar. Beyond the purely sporting aspect, the Kingdom is also investing in new infrastructure to perfect its major football project. At the start of the week, the announcement of the major construction site of the future King Salman Stadium caused a stir: “The Royal Commission for the City of Riyadh and the Ministry of Sports have unveiled the King Salman Stadium which will become the largest stadium in Saudi Arabia and one of the largest sporting venues in the world. The stadium, due to be completed by the end of 2029, will serve as the main headquarters for the Saudi Arabian national football team and will also host other domestic and international sporting and entertainment events», It was written in the official press release.

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The main stadium will have a gross capacity of more than 92,000 with amenities including a royal box and VIP lounges. The site will feature internal screens, gardens and a rooftop walking path offering panoramic views of King Abdulaziz Park. In this future modern sports space, commercial facilities, football training grounds, fan zones, an aquatic center with an Olympic swimming pool and an athletics stadium will also be present. But behind this immense, innovative and futuristic stadium, a scandal is breaking out after the joint publication of a major investigation. Behind the site's signs, plastered with optimistic slogans such as “Family destination” et “Connecting Communities”hundreds of migrant workers are experiencing the other hidden side of the Saudi dream of hosting the World Cup. The Gulf kingdom's candidacy promises a “breathtaking tournament of excitement and innovation”but the revelations reflect the shocking conditions endured by migrant workers in Qatar, raising the prospect that once again the World Cup will be tarnished by widespread labor rights abuses.

“People are going to die”

British newspapers The Guardian et Daily Mail have been carrying out a major investigation in Saudi Arabia for several months and thus revealed for the first time disturbing details about the preparation for this World Cup. Alongside ten other NGOs from the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) consortium, Amnesty International published a report on Monday entitled “High Stakes Bids”, which concluded that Saudi Arabia's hosting of the 2034 tournament should be immediately suspended in order to to avoid abuses and deaths which seem inevitable given current practices. Two weeks ago, FairSquare published an in-depth study into FIFA's activities, concluding that football's governing body plays a role in “a wide range of social harms, including very serious and systematic violations of human rights”. In other words, FIFA is not only confused and misled, but is an active source of harm, and people are oppressed, enslaved and killed in its name. The recent documentary Kingdom Uncovered provided an additional figure that comes on top of 11 new stadiums, 185,000 new hotel rooms and the estimated $1 billion sponsorship deal between FIFA and Aramco, the Saudi state-owned oil company. This figure rises to 21,000, the total of Nepalese, Bangladeshi and Indian workers who have died since the launch of the Vision 2030 program in April 2016. Passports are confiscated, salaries are not paid, contracts turn out to be dummy. Stuck in debt, unable to change jobs and too afraid to complain, many find themselves in a kind of modern-day slavery. Six Construct, a subsidiary of Belgian construction giant BESIX, is one of the main stadium contractors. This company has a history of being accused of workers' rights violations. According to a 2016 Amnesty International report, workers working for the company at one of the Qatar World Cup stadiums faced extremely abusive working conditions, similar to those found at the Aramco stadium in Saudi Arabia.

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The Guardian states that “in a country where thousands of migrant workers have died since 2016, a huge construction site is looming. December's coronation will surely go down as the most miserable, bloody and destructive act in the history of world organized sport“. As Stephen Cockburn of Amnesty International says: “FIFA knows that workers risk dying if it hands the World Cup to Saudi Arabia without putting in place adequate protections. They will never be able to say that they were not warned, nor that they did not have the opportunity to prevent it. As demands for justice and accountability inevitably grow, perhaps one day this fact will become important. Given the scale of Saudi Arabia's plans for the World Cup…it is clear that the 2034 tournament will most likely be tarnished by exploitation, discrimination and repression.”. Workers work 10 hours a day in sweltering heat, installing steel rods, erecting scaffolding and assembling the structures for the giant concrete pillars that will support the stadium. During the summer, work at the stadium continued in two shifts, around the clock, with a short break in the middle of the day, despite the extreme heat and humidity, which often reached 45 degrees. Some of them say they earn less than 2.39 euros per hour for this work. Other workers say their employers withhold the first two or three months of salary, leaving them in a difficult situation: “it’s not easy to leave this job because they have my money”explains one of them to Daily Mail. It is also worth seeing whether the UN, which refused Saudi Arabia's entry into the Human Rights Council, will be alerted by the cry of warning from these eleven NGOs.

The deafening silence of FIFA

It has been suggested that FIFA has watered down its human rights demands, another move that would facilitate a Saudi bid. These requirements were explicit at all stages of the application process for 2026. The requirements for 2034, on the other hand, seem very thin. As the Amnesty report points out: “FIFA has weakened its influence by continuing a selection process without a call for tenders or separate votes. It has also significantly limited the scope of human rights assessment in Saudi Arabia, in violation of its own human rights policies and responsibilities.. Ahead, Gianni Infantino and his executive took direct steps widely seen as paving the way for Saudi Arabia to succeed. Organizing 2030 on three continents meant that 2034 was limited to Asia or Oceania. Potential hosts had only 25 days to express their intention. Only Saudi Arabia came forward. The Norwegian Football Association called the decision a «non transparent». In addition, the application requirements have been adapted for Saudi Arabia. The number of existing stadiums required has been reduced from seven to four. FIFA has approved an assessment of human rights in Saudi Arabia led by Clifford Chance. An elaborate facade since this company works closely with Saudi government ministries, the country's Public Investment Fund and the Saudi Pro League.

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From now on, it will be essential to know what FIFA’s reaction will be. Even if all of the above could be established, the crime of corporate manslaughter would require something else to prove. The lack of precaution must be extreme and obvious from a non-legal perspective, it is not difficult to argue that FIFA has a duty of care towards those affected by the construction and organization of its events . The FIFA rules for the 2022 edition outline the obligation to “respect all internationally recognized human rights”. Rules also specified in the application regulations for 2034: “when international human rights standards and national laws and regulations conflict, FIFA must follow the higher standard”. Saudi Arabia will remain impervious to political pressure due to its carbon power and political structure. But it is always essential to remember that FIFA has never issued a contradictory criticism and that it has no justification for exercising its free and brutal and punitive hand. And beyond that, the World Cup is not just a FIFA affair, all national federations have human rights responsibilities and every vote in favor of this outcome is “a cross traced in the blood of those who will build it» concludes Guardian.