The two NGOs Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) ask in a press release published on Sunday, November 10, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to“interrupt” Saudi Arabia’s selection process as host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
“Awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without obtaining credible guarantees of reforms will have a real and predictable human cost”believes Steve Cockburn, head of Amnesty International’s Labor Rights and Sport program. According to him, “Fans will be discriminated against, residents will be forcibly evicted, migrant workers will be exploited and many will die”.
To welcome the football world in 2034, Saudi Arabia is thinking big. It provides for the construction or renovation of 11 stadiums. More than 185,000 additional hotel rooms are planned, as well as gigantic infrastructure projects linked to transport, in particular. The Saudi regime also plans to build new cities. To carry out these major works, Riyadh will necessarily need a significant foreign workforce. “However, it has still not made a commitment to reform the sponsorship system (kafala) which exploits workers in the country, to set a minimum wage for non-citizens, to authorize them to join unions or to adopt new measures aimed at preventing deaths at work”, souligne Steve Cockburn.
“FIFA must halt the process until adequate human rights protections are in place, so as not to worsen an already dire situation”continues Steve Cockburn. Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) are calling for “major human rights reforms” before the vote of FIFA members scheduled for December 11, 2024 during an extraordinary congress of the world football body.
The 2030 World Cup is also in the sights of NGOs. According to them, FIFA must “condition the attribution of the 2030 World Cup to Morocco, Portugal and Spain”who propose a joint candidacy, “to develop a much more credible strategy in terms of fundamental rights” and demand “binding commitments”.
Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) are concerned about the lack of guarantees in the candidate cities’ files regarding the protection of players and supporters against discriminatory violations. They also wish to prevent police violence and are very attentive to safeguarding residents’ housing rights. They had already highlighted these risks in a report published in June 2024. “Morocco, Portugal and Spain must take their human rights responsibilities much more seriously,” déclare Steve Cockburn.
After the controversies during the 2018 World Cup in Russia and Qatar in 2022, FIFA for the first time introduced human rights criteria in its selection process for the 2026 men’s World Cup. But NGOs believe that the procedure to apply today is “biased”. According to them, “FIFA has undermined its leverage on human rights reforms” notably “by following a procedure which presents only one application for each tournament”.
“FIFA has long claimed to take human rights standards into account when it selects World Cup host countries and organizes its flagship tournaments. Unless it is honest about the scale and severity of the future risks and acts to prevent them, it will be clear that its commitment to human rights is nothing but a sham”, said Andrea Florence, director of the Sports & Rights Alliance.
The president of Amnesty International France, Anne Savinel-Barras, affirmed, on franceinfo, Sunday November 10, that she doubted FIFA’s commitment to human rights. “We provided our report, in June 2024, to FIFA, emphasizing our fears that the principles of human rights protection were not respected”she explained. “FIFA did not deign to respond, so we can question the seriousness of their commitment”she said. For Anne Savinel-Barras, FIFA must “condition the attribution of the World Cup to a much more comprehensive strategy in terms of the protection of human rights”.
