TThe greatest trick the devil ever learned was to overwhelm the critical faculties of those who tried to hold him accountable. Once the word “garbage'' is used, a lot of careful reading to dig into its true meaning occurs. Did he say “advocates” or “advocates”? But when you're a convicted felon who's constantly spewing insults and unwarranted abuse, your responses are so disparate and unfocused that you always move on to the next rant, none of which fully sticks. .
Saudi Arabia will win the right to host the 2034 World Cup on Wednesday. Sometimes there isn't even a vote, just applause. Norwegian Football Federation president Lise Klavenes has been an admirably consistent critic of Gianni Infantino, and last month raised many questions As for the bidding process in 2034, there appears to be little she can do now. The other Scandinavian federations, the only vague bastions of resistance, already seem to have accepted the inevitable. What else can you do when there is only one option available?
But it's worth reviewing why there's only one choice. FIFA regulations, quite reasonably, state that after hosting the World Cup, a federation cannot host either of the next two tournaments. The 2026 World Cup will be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, leaving Concacaf out of the running. The 2030 World Cup will be co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with three token matches being held in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup in Uruguay. As a result, Uefa, Kaf, and Conmebol have been excluded, and the 2034 event will be held in either Asia or Oceania.
On October 6 last year, FIFA opened the bidding process without any warning, giving host candidates 25 days to submit their bids. Compiling bids can take months. At the most basic level, a stadium must be selected, logistics considered, construction financed and planning permission secured. It takes less than 25 days. Fortunately, Saudi Arabia had the bidding documents ready. Australia, who might have had an interest in hosting the event, looked which way the wind was blowing and didn't bother entering a race they had no chance of winning.
But even then, the Saudi side was subject to FIFA's rigorous vetting process before it could negotiate. Riyadh-based AS&H Clifford Chance was contracted to compile an “independent human rights assessment.” Amnesty International uses this report to selectively draw on UN research that highlights the widespread torture, sexual abuse, and sexual abuse that women and girls in prison are often themselves. , called it a “whitewash” that ignored specific issues. face criminal chargescomplaints regarding worker rights, etc.
The last point seems particularly pertinent in light of the report by FIFA's Human Rights and Social Responsibility Subcommittee released last week. Despite concluding that FIFA has a responsibility to compensate those who suffered losses as a result of their employment on World Cup construction projects, the governing body has refused to pay compensation.
Considering the scale of construction, there are reports predicting that the situation in Saudi Arabia will worsen further. essentially ignored. Approximately 21,000 Indian, Bangladeshi and Nepali workers have died in Saudi Arabia since 2016. Construction has begun on a number of new stadiums and related infrastructure, including 185,000 hotel rooms, and that number shows no signs of slowing down. Qatar's worker-sponsored kafala system, which was eventually abolished, has been abolished, at least in law, if not in practice, while trade unions are banned and labor laws are largely unenforced. , leading to widespread exploitation of migrant workers.
FIFA's own report on the Saudi bid rates the human rights risk as 'medium', but you may be wondering what exactly constitutes 'high'. Amnesty International called the situation “dire” and said it had worsened under Mohammed bin Salman, who as crown prince “has presided over a surge in mass executions, torture, enforced disappearances, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and suppression of women's rights.” ” he explains. Male guardianship, LGBTI+ discrimination, and the killing of hundreds of migrants on the Saudi-Yemeni border. ”
FIFA gave the Saudi bid its highest ever score of 419.8 out of 500, likely due to the 1982 Albanian general election in which Enver Hoxha's communists won 1,627,959 votes out of 1,627,968. This is the least reliable figure released by a public organization since the Their stadium was rated the same as the stadium in 2026, which is an amazing achievement considering that 11 of Saudi Arabia's stadiums actually don't exist yet.
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All of this raises the obvious question: why? Saudi Arabia will host the World Cup as part of a more general soft-power investment in the sport, but what will FIFA get in return? Last week, Infantino announced that next summer's Club World Cup It has been announced that the streaming rights to the Cup have been purchased by DAZN, his pet project aimed at depriving UEFA of at least some of the club's matches and its resources, for $1 billion. Stream live for free. This is a number suggested by industry insiders and is significantly higher than the market rate (Fox offered just $10 million. for the rights of the United States).
DAZN has posted losses of at least £1 billion each year since 2019, while recent reports suggest that the Saudi Public Investment Fund Preparing for $1 billion bid equivalent to 10% of the company. And DAZN will be a platform to boost investment in Saudi sport while rescuing the Club World Cup, which is in dire need of an injection of capital. Infantino and Saudi Arabia win. Soccer and human decency both lose.
The World Cup was founded by Jules Rimet, a romantic who believed that “sport can unite the world,'' in response to a proposal from the Holy See that sport should be used to alleviate “misery and misery.'' Ta. It took only four years and the intervention of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to show how naive it was. But while the World Cup is the biggest sporting festival on the planet, it is also run at great human and environmental cost for the benefit of torturers, murderers, exploiters and society. As well as being a lowly commercial machine, it had never seemed so far removed from Rimet's ideals as now. Uncontrollably greedy and obstructed by various forms of inhumanity.
