Dyears a report entitled Bids with high stakes: the dangerous inadequacies of the human rights strategies proposed for the 2030 and 2034 World CupsAmnesty and the SRA are sounding the alarm.
The two NGOs urge FIFA to suspend the 2034 selection process and to impose credible commitments on human rights for the 2030 World Cup. The choice of Saudi Arabia as the sole candidate for 2034 is hardly surprising. Riyadh has positioned itself as a major player in the world of sport, increasing investments in international competitions. But behind the promises of infrastructure and modernity, the country remains criticized for its “violations of fundamental rights”, notably in the “treatment of migrant workers, its crackdown on freedom of expression, and restrictions on women and minorities”, notes the report.
Steve Cockburn, head of workers rights and sport at Amnesty International, warns that “awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without guarantees of credible reforms will generate real and predictable human costs. Fans will be discriminated against, residents forcibly evicted, and migrant workers exploited and risk their lives”.
In its Bid Book, Saudi Arabia promises to build or renovate 11 stadiums and deploy more than 185,000 new hotel rooms. However, no concrete measures are planned to improve the condition of foreign workers who will be involved in these pharaonic projects, according to Amnesty.
The international NGO recalls, in this sense, the absence of “rsignificant changes to the Kafala sponsorship system, which links workers to their employers”, and the persistence of heavy penalties for dissenting voices. According to Cockburn, this lack of reform is symptomatic of a “lack of serious commitment to human rights”.
For the 2030 edition, which will be held within the framework of an unprecedented co-organization between Morocco, Spain and Portugal, similar concerns are raised. Although this application is received with enthusiasm in Morocco and the Arab world, Amnesty International and the SRA have identified several risks. “Police violence and excessive use of force against crowds” remain concerns in these three countries, where abuse of authority and incidents involving rubber balls have already caused controversy during sporting events.
Morocco plans to build a new stadium with 115,000 seats near Casablanca, as well as new transport infrastructure. However, NGOs point out the insufficiency of “protections for the rights of local residents”, particularly regarding “forced evictions”, according to the Amnesty International report. In Spain and Portugal, rights groups also fear a “rise in real estate prices” and the “scarcity of affordable housing” for residents of the host cities.
“Morocco, Portugal and Spain must take their human rights responsibilities much more seriously”, estimates Steve Cockburn. For him, the 2030 World Cup “could represent an opportunity to strengthen human rights protection in these countries, but only if governments and federations work closely with fans, human rights organizations and relevant social groups”.
A biased selection?
For organizations like Amnesty and the SRA, FIFA is responsible for this situation through its selection choices and its voting process, which is considered opaque. The inclusion of human rights criteria in the selection of host countries had nevertheless marked a notable step forward for FIFA during the 2026 World Cup, after the controversies surrounding the 2018 editions in Russia and 2022 in Qatar.
However, according to Andrea Florence, director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, “FIFA appears to have helped pave the way for a weak human rights strategy for Saudi Arabia, by agreeing to limit the human rights risk assessment carried out by Clifford Chance (an international business law firm , of English origin, editor’s note)”.
In addition, the voting system for December 2024 is seen as an obstacle to any significant challenge, because the 211 member associations will have to vote for the entire “package” of applications for 2030 and 2034 without being able to evaluate each project individually. Such a process limits the room for maneuver of federations that would like to comment on human rights issues, NGOs believe.
FIFA will have to submit in the coming weeks its evaluation of the human rights strategies of the two candidacies, a document which will be decisive for the votes of the federations.
Andrea Florence of the SRA points out that “If FIFA is not honest about the scale and severity of the risks and does not take steps to prevent them, it will become clear that its commitment to human rights is just a facade”.
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