Why is Saudi Arabia a controversial host?
The situation in Saudi Arabia is that freedom of expression, freedom of the press and gender inequality do not exist. Women and girls have few rights. It is an absolute monarchy. Human rights groups say the country has one of the worst human rights records in the world. You are not allowed to express any political opinions, nor are you allowed to criticize the monarchy.
The Saudis will say that we are changing the country, that the country is opening up to the world. ‘Our society is changing. We are a country that has been dependent on oil and we want to be a tourist destination, an entertainment destination, finance and technology. It’s a hub and that’s why we invest in sport.’
Critics will say that’s only part of the story. The bigger part of the story is that they do this to sportswash their image. They are using sports to change their image and demonstrate soft power. So when people think about Saudi Arabia, they don’t think about human rights violations. For example, you think about Cristiano Ronaldo, Formula 1 or golf. I think this is a legitimate concern.
FIFA said human rights were part of the bid evaluation process, but many believe human rights did not play a sufficient role in the process.
Why has FIFA’s process also been criticized?
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Jamie Weir explains Saudi Arabia’s bid for the 2034 World Cup and why it is so controversial.
After a very controversial vote in 2010, when Russia won 2018 and Qatar won 2022, we thought this would be a catalyst for change. From now on, everything will be open and transparent. But now we find ourselves in a situation where everything seems to be happening behind closed doors. And it’s also difficult to defend a process where there is only one bid for each World Cup.
Are there more countries in the world wanting to host the World Cup than have a single bid for each competition?
For example, if the World Cup were to be held on three continents in 2030 (since the games would be held not only in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, but also in South America), then Europe, Africa and South America would immediately be taken out of the equation when it comes to hosting. 2034 World Cup.
And FIFA said the 2034 event should be held in Asia or Oceania because of federation rotation principles. It was announced in October last year. He said anyone wanting to host must submit a bid within 25 days. And within minutes, Saudi Arabia submitted its bid. No one had time to propose a bid because it took months and months to put together. Australia was thinking about it but decided not to bid pretty quickly.
Hosting the World Cup in Saudi Arabia is highly controversial. But at least where there were other bids, if there was an open and transparent process, whether there was media scrutiny or a free and open vote, then we can say that Saudi Arabia won fairly.
However, FIFA said its auditors concluded that both evaluation processes were conducted with objectivity, truthfulness and transparency.
And the FIFA General Assembly to confirm the hosting of the World Cup was held online?
Typically there will be a FIFA meeting attended by top figures from all 211 member associations. There will be a lot of journalists there and we will have a chance to talk to a lot of people, followed by a press conference. But because it’s all done online, from our perspective, it means there’s less media scrutiny.
FIFA says this makes more sense in this day and age, and doing it virtually requires keeping carbon emissions in mind.
But should the FIFA General Assembly have ended in a situation where it was held only online, with no actual voting and only applause? There was competitive bidding, there was a process that wasn’t expedited, there was media scrutiny, the right questions could be asked, and the actual votes could be counted to see who voted for what and by how much they won.
What is the position of the FA, SFA and FA of Wales?
The FAs of England, Scotland and Wales supported both bids.
Should the FA have taken a stand? I think a lot of people will come out and say that it would be nice to stand up for what you believe in on principle. But sometimes things get so political that I think you have to take a lot of other things into your decision-making process.
For example, if England qualify for the 2034 World Cup, we know that the England team will go there. So would the FA end up being seen as hypocrites if they didn’t support this? We also know that British companies do a lot of business in Saudi Arabia.
The prime minister spoke with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman there on Monday and invited him to a soccer match in Britain to strengthen the defense partnership between the two countries. So you can say. If everyone else is doing business in Saudi Arabia, why shouldn’t football do business there too?
Will it be a winter World Cup?
Traditionally, the World Cup has always been held in the summer, until Qatar switches to winter in 2022. Saudi Arabia’s climate is similar to Qatar, so it is difficult to expect how the World Cup will be hosted in the summer of 2024.
I spoke to the president of the Saudi FA, who is responsible for the bid, and they always said we were not ruling anything out and were looking at the possibility of hosting the World Cup in the summer.
The international fixtures have only been agreed until 2030, so we’ll have to wait and see. But most observers would say we are looking at another winter World Cup.
We already know how crowded the fixture schedule has become with the Champions League also expanding. I think the World Cup will be held in January or February.
Some people – and I’m not one of them – say, ‘It was pretty good to have the winter World Cup in Qatar because we had better quality of football and it was mid-season so the players weren’t as tired.’ The nights are long and dark in Western Europe and it was great to be able to watch a big tournament in the winter.’ This is the only positive direction I can think of.
How did the Saudi bid get its highest ever rating from FIFA?
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Hammad Albalawi, the head of Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid, defended the process with FIFA and said everyone, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, would be welcome after accusations of sportswashing.
Despite only a stand-alone bidding process for each World Cup, FIFA said a proper bidding process was still required. ‘We will evaluate the bids and send people to the bidding countries to look at their bids and stadiums.’ And FIFA now also reviews human rights in countries bidding to host the World Cup as part of the bidding process.
In a controversial bid evaluation report released at almost midnight on Friday night, Saudi Arabia received the highest score of any bid ever. I think it was 4.2 out of 5.
The bid evaluation report said the human rights risks of hosting the World Cup in Saudi Arabia were moderate. Many people criticized the process and the bid evaluation report.
Is this sportswashing?
This is a really important question. Why does Saudi Arabia want the World Cup? Saudi Arabia’s sports minister has gone on record saying that the most important treasures they want for world sport are their F1, the upcoming World Cup and the Olympics. I’m sure they’ll be looking at it in the future.
Why do they want it? Critics will say it all has to do with sportswashing. Because they want to change their image on the world stage. So when people think about Saudi Arabia, they don’t think about a repressive, oppressive regime. Instead, they think of Cristiano Ronaldo, or they think of Lewis Hamilton, or they think of the World Cup.
The Saudis, the Saudi officials I spoke to, would say no. It has nothing to do with sportswashing, that’s a really simple way to look at it. ‘The reason we are doing this is because we want to transform our country and our economy from one that relies on oil revenues to one that is based on tourism and entertainment. We want to make Saudi Arabia a financial and technology hub.’
When it comes to human rights and reforms, I would say that we have made some reforms, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Critics say many of these reforms are superficial and made only for public relations purposes.
And the situation on the ground regarding civil liberties and human rights has not really changed in Saudi Arabia.
