Men's World Cup: FIFA should halt selection process for 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia

World football governing body should also demand a credible human rights strategy from Morocco, Portugal and Spain 

FIFA appears to have assisted Saudi Arabia by limiting the scope of a recent Clifford Chance risk assessment

‘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

FIFA should halt the process to select Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 men’s World Cup unless major human rights reforms are announced before a vote of FIFA members next month, Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance said today. 

Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance are also calling on FIFA to make the awarding of the 2030 World Cup to Morocco, Portugal and Spain conditional on the development of a far more credible human rights strategy than has so far been made available by these countries. 

In a new 27-page report - High Stakes Bids: Dangerously Flawed Human Rights Strategies for the 2030 and 2034 FIFA World Cup - Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance have evaluated the human rights strategies proposed by Morocco, Portugal and Spain for the 2030 tournament, and by Saudi Arabia for the 2034 event. The report concludes that neither bid adequately outlines how the would-be host nation would meet the human rights standards required by FIFA in its bidding regulations, nor did these bids show evidence of having meaningfully consulted with human rights organisations. 

The risks associated with Saudi Arabia hosting the 2023 World Cup are so high, said Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance, that hosting the tournament in this country is likely to lead to severe and widespread rights violations (see further details below). 

Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Labour Rights and Sport, said: 

“There will be a real and predictable human cost to awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without obtaining credible guarantees of reform.

“Fans will face discrimination, residents will be forcibly evicted, migrant workers will face exploitation, and many will die.

“Saudi Arabia will require a vast number of migrant workers to deliver its World Cup ambitions, yet there are no commitments to reform the country’s exploitative ‘kafala’ sponsorship system, establish a minimum wage for non-citizens, permit them to join trade unions or introduce new measures to prevent worker deaths. 

“Saudi Arabia’s human rights strategy does not address the government’s severe repression of free speech and the continued imprisonment of individuals who have been sentenced to decades in prison merely for their expression, suggesting that there is no serious commitment to reform.

“FIFA must halt the process until proper human rights protections are in place to avoid worsening an already dire situation.

“FIFA must also demand far more credible strategies and binding commitments to prevent human rights violations in relation to the 2030 World Cup. Morocco, Portugal and Spain have still not adequately explained how players and fans will be protected from discriminatory abuse, what measures will be taken to prevent the excessive use of police force, or how residents’ housing rights will be safeguarded.”

Andrea Florence, Sports & Rights Alliance Director, said: 

“FIFA has long claimed that it includes human rights standards when selecting its World Cup hosts and when delivering its flagship tournaments.

“Unless FIFA is honest about the scale and severity of the risks ahead, and acts to prevent them, it will be clear that its commitment to human rights is a sham.

“FIFA was the first global sports body to introduce human rights criteria in its selection process for a mega-sporting event, so it would be shocking to see the organisation now completely jettison these principles in favour of its bottom line.”

Saudi Arabia: 2034

Saudi Arabia’s “Bid Book” for the 2034 World Cup outlines ambitious plans to build or renovate 11 stadiums, provide more than 185,000 additional hotel rooms as well as major infrastructure projects from transport connections to new cities. Despite the enormous infrastructure projects planned, the bid’s human rights strategy details no new measures to protect or compensate people from forced evictions. The strategy also fails to address discrimination against women, the criminalisation of extra-marital and same-sex relations, and provides no measures or commitments to protect LGBTI fans and residents from abuse or arrest. 

FIFA even appears to have helped pave the way for Saudi Arabia’s weak human rights strategy by agreeing to severely limit the scope of a human rights risk assessment conducted by the law firm AS&H Clifford Chance which omitted key rights issues including freedom of expression, LGBTI discrimination and forced evictions. FIFA did not respond to a request from Amnesty to confirm on what basis they did this, while Clifford Chance responded only to say that it would be “inappropriate” to comment further.

Morocco, Portugal and Spain: 2030

Morocco, Portugal and Spain have proposed to host games in 20 stadiums across 17 cities - in addition to three games in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Plans include a new 115,000-seater stadium outside Casablanca and new transport links. Human rights risks highlighted by Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance in their June 2024 report included the excessive use of police force against crowds in all three countries, the improper use of rubber bullets, restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, and the persistence of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse within football. The report also highlighted the risks of reducing the availability of affordable accommodation for residents of host cities in Portugal and Spain, and of forced evictions in Morocco. Extramarital and same-sex relations are also both criminalised in Morocco.

The human rights strategies submitted by the three football associations, however, failed to provide clear commitments to adequately addressing the majority of the risks identified by Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance, and were based on limited consultation.

FIFA’s human rights criteria

FIFA first introduced human rights criteria into its World Cup selection process for the 2026 men’s World Cup following controversies over the selection of Russia and Qatar for 2018 and 2022. In October 2023, FIFA confirmed that bids for the 2030 and 2034 World Cup must again show how they would meet a range of human rights standards, including on labour rights, freedom of expression and discrimination, and that these requirements would be “fully binding obligations”. However, FIFA seriously undermined its own leverage to insist on human rights reforms by pursuing a process with only one bid for each tournament. Last month, FIFA also announced that national FAs will not be able to vote for each bid separately, but must approve or reject the two bids as a package.

In the coming month, FIFA is due to submit its own evaluation of both bids’ human rights strategies to its executive board, the FIFA Council. If approved by the council 211 national Football Associations will then meet on 11 December for an online extraordinary congress to vote to approve the bids.

The Sport & Rights Alliance 

The Sport & Rights Alliance includes Amnesty International, The Army of Survivors, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Football Supporters Europe, Human Rights Watch, ILGA World (The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association), the International Trade Union Confederation, the World Players Association and UNI Global Union. 

In June, Amnesty and the Sport & Rights Alliance published a 91-page report detailing the human rights risks connected with both the 2030 and 2034 World Cup bids.