In 2022, the World Cup was awarded in a Gulf state for the first time: the Argentines lifted the trophy in Qatar’s capital Doha.
Photo: imago/Jose Breton
It’s a done deal, this Wednesday there will probably only be applause – with a click of the mouse: In a zoom conference, the 211 member associations of the world football federation Fifa will determine the organizers of the 2030 and 2034 World Cup tournaments from 3 p.m. Central European time, by acclamation and en bloc. Using software, the respective main delegates will applaud and thus signal their approval for both applications: Morocco, Portugal, Spain in 2030 and Saudi Arabia 2034.
It appears that it will be a unanimous decision. The harshest critic of awarding the World Cup to the Gulf Kingdom, the Norwegian Football Association President Lise Klaveness, was unable to find any notable supporters among her European colleagues. Klaveness complains that things were anything but perfect when the 2022 tournament was awarded to Qatar: “But back then there were still real processes and qualified people at the administrative level at FIFA.” This is now hardly the case with Saudi Arabia 2034 .
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DFB: No courage to say no
Last Friday, the German Football Association (DFB) also announced its approval of Swiss Fifa President Gianni Infantino’s double award plan. Rejecting the applications would amount to “pure symbolic politics,” argued DFB President Bernd Neuendorf. If the German association were to take a stand against Saudi Arabia, “we would have taken ourselves out of the game.” You would be isolated.
There are still plenty of things to criticize about the World Cup hosts. Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, laments the “egregious human rights violations” in Saudi Arabia, “inadequate Heat protection of migrant workers” and also “uncontrolled Wage theftthe ban on unions and an abusive kafala labor system”. FIFA ignores the conditions.
13.4 million migrant workers
In Saudi Arabia The situation is even more devastating than at the Desert World Cup in Qatar in 2022. In the small emirate of Qatar there are only around two million migrant workers, while in the huge Saudi Arabia, according to Human Rights Watch, 13.4 million people from abroad are currently working, three quarters of them come from poor Asian countries. Many of them have to do hard physical labor under devastating conditions.
And unlike in Qatar, human rights organizations have no access to the sealed off kingdom. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s application does not even begin to show how it wants to prevent exploitation and repression in the context of the World Cup, according to Amnesty International (AI). Before the award on Wednesday, the human rights organization also pointed out the risks that football fans from all over the world will be exposed to in Saudi Arabia. “Anyone who is homosexual is criminalized because same-sex acts are punished,” said AI director Stephen Cockburn to the “Tagesspiegel.”
Moderate concerns
Fifa, however, refers to theirs Evaluation reportin which Saudi Arabia received 4.2 out of 5 possible points. In the “general risk assessment” the world association only identified a “medium risk” under human rights, as well as in the areas of tournament timing, transport, accommodation and stadiums. In all other areas, the Fifa auditors showed themselves Bid Book convinced: Saudi Arabia has a “unique, innovative and ambitious vision” for the 2034 World Cup.
The World Cup is scheduled to be played in 2034 in 15 stadiums spread across five cities. In addition to the capital Riyadh and the port city of Jeddah, games will also be played in Abha, Khobar and Neom. The resettlement Neom, according to the plan 2034 Should have 300,000 residents is part of the government program »Saudi Vision 2030« and thus a prestige project of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who wants to end his kingdom’s dependence on oil with billions of dollars in investments in tourism, entertainment – and also in sport. Play The Game, a transparency initiative from the Danish Institute of Sports Science that aims to raise ethical standards in world sport, calculated the astonishing number of 910 cases of Saudi sports sponsorship worldwide: sportwashing, as its neighbors from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been doing for almost two decades.
A slap in the face
By winning the World Cup on Wednesday, Saudi Arabia will now celebrate the biggest success in its multi-billion-dollar sports PR offensive, which attracted superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar Jr. to the Saudi Football League. For Saudi human rights activists like Maryam Aldossari, a lecturer at Royal Holloway University of London, the awarding of the World Cup to the country is a slap in the face: “While stadiums shimmer and the spotlight shines, women languish in prison for acts as harmless as tweeting and migrant workers endure systemic exploitation, and dissent is pursued with ruthless efficiency.”
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