Amnesty International asks FIFA to halt World Cup bid process over Saudi rights record
Saudi Arabia's bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup has come under a rights shadow ahead of the vote to pick the host next month. Global human rights watchdog Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) have asked FIFA to halt the process to choose the country as the host until it announces major human rights reforms.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member country holds political and economic sway in the region with its rights records often under the scanner.
FIFA, the apex body responsible for organising the football World Cup, is slated to hold a Congress next month to approve the 2030 and 2034 tournaments, though each has only a single bid. A combined bid of Morocco, Spain and Portugal is the sole one for2030,while Saudi Arabia is the only bidder for 2034.
Amnesty and the SRA said they had studied 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 the world football governing body. Amnesty and SRA said the risks were far greater in Saudi Arabia and hosting the tournament in the country would lead to "severe and widespread" human rights violations.
According to a recent report, Saudi Arabia is spending more than a billion dollars to sponsor global sporting events as it looks to burnish its reputation and assert itself as a global superpower.
Thereport by think-tank New Weather Institute revealed that oil giant Aramco, a Saudi state-controlled company and one of the world's most profitable firms, is pouring around $1.3 billion into the global sports industry, leveraging a playbook widely employed by Big Tobacco before it was banned from doing so.
"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," Cockburn added.
FIFA said the bid evaluation reports for the 2030 and 2034 World Cup would be published ahead of its extraordinary Congress on Dec. 11. It is almost certain that the Saudi bid will succeed due to the absence of any other bidders.
A major cause for concern has been how LGBTQ people will be treated in the Kingdom.
Hammad Albalawi, head of Saudi Arabia's World Cup bid unit, said in September that LGBTQ fans were welcome and theirprivacy 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."
Saudi Arabia's bid book stated 15 stadiums would be built or refurbished for the World Cup, with construction set to be complete by 2032, while more than 185,000 additional hotel rooms would be built ahead of the tournament.
