"Saudi Arabia's newest sportswashing strategy: sponsorship of women's World Cup," 16 Feb 2023

FIFA’s decision to award Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority sponsorship of the 2023 Women’s World Cup shows shocking disregard for suffering and repression of Saudi’s courageous women’s rights defenders. It points to the need for FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, finally to carry out its promised human rights due diligence on the impact of its decisions and to enforce its own human rights and non-discrimination policies across all FIFA operations—including future World Cup hosts and sponsorships.

... As a sponsoring company, the Saudi state tourism campaign will be shown throughout women’s games, on the jumbotron, in stadiums and blanketing game-time television with advertisements... Saudi Arabia, of course, is a global outlier on human rights—and especially women’s rights...

So long as Saudi Arabia discriminates against LGBT people and punishes women for their rights activism or their otherwise peaceful exercise of freedom of expression, FIFA should not be allowing Saudi authorities to use the most-watched women’s sport event to sportswash its rights abuses.

Human Rights Watch contacted FIFA to request details on the soccer governing body’s human rights due diligence and stakeholder consultation for selection of World Cup hosts and awarding commercial sponsorship contracts. FIFA has not responded...

FIFA should reverse its decision to include the Saudi state authority as a sponsor...