FIFA must halt Saudi World Cup bid due to human rights issues, says Amnesty
FIFA must halt the process to pick Saudi Arabia as hosts of the 2034 World Cup unless major human rights reforms are announced before the vote next month.
FIFA must halt the process to pick Saudi Arabia as hosts of the 2034 World Cup unless major human rights reforms are announced before the vote next month, Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) have said.
Votes are due to be held at the FIFA Congress next month to approve the 2030 and 2034 World Cups, though each has only a single bid. A combined bid of Morocco, Spain and Portugal is the sole bid for 2030, while Saudi Arabia is the lone bidder for 2034.
Amnesty and the SRA said they had evaluated 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 FIFA.
They said the risks were far greater in Saudi Arabia and hosting the tournament in the Gulf country would lead to “severe and widespread” human rights violations.
“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 labor rights and sport, said in a statement.
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