"Saudi Arabia: 2034 World Cup Risks Widespread Labor Abuse,"

Saudi Arabia’s World Cup bid fails to address the country’s widespread labor rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

FIFA, the international football organization, will formally certify the awarding of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia on December 11, 2024. FIFA has reportedly completed its evaluation of the Saudi bid. On July 29, Saudi authorities submitted their “bid book” alongside a Human Rights Strategy and an Independent Context Assessment, which are FIFA bidding requirements. All three documents blatantly ignore well-documented risks workers face, including forced labor. They also lack any analysis of enforcement gaps and don’t include perspectives of rightsholders and other stakeholders beyond Saudi government officials. 

“Saudi Arabia’s FIFA World Cup hosting documents ignore the country’s egregious human rights violations, including inadequate heat protections, unchecked wage theft, the ban on labor unions and an abusive kafala (visa sponsorship) labor system,” said Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch. “FIFA is willfully blind to the country’s human rights record, setting up a decade of potentially horrific human rights abuses preparing for the 2034 World Cup.”...

Despite the indispensable role of migrant workers for the 2034 World Cup, the government’s bid documents fail to meaningfully prioritize key labor protections...

“Not a single migrant worker, victim of human rights crimes, torture survivor, jailed women’s rights advocate, or Saudi civil society member was consulted for FIFA’s supposedly independent report,” Worden said. “FIFA’s treatment of the Saudi bid is an abysmal failure to implement mandatory human rights risk assessments and protections for the millions of migrant workers who are going to make the 2034 World Cup possible.”

The other key bid document, the “Human Rights Strategy in connection with the 2034 FIFA World Cup,” falsely refers to the Independent Context Analysis as a “robust human rights context risk assessment” based on “robust engagement with relevant stakeholders in the Kingdom to examine current policies and regulations, and identify salient risks and gaps associated with preparing and hosting the tournament.” ...

Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA detailing concerns regarding the 2034 bid book and has informed sponsors including Coca-Cola, Adidas, and AB InBev about the flawed human rights risk assessments...