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Saudi Arabia has been officially confirmed by FIFA as the host of the 2034 men’s soccer World Cup, giving the oil-rich kingdom its biggest prize yet for the massive global sports spending spree driven by Crown Prince Mohammed bin salman
The Saudi bid was the only candidate and was hailed by applause from more than 200 FIFA member federations. They participated remotely in an online meeting organized on Wednesday in Zurich by the president of the football body, Gianni Infantino.
“The congressional vote is loud and clear,” said Infantino, who had asked officials at a bank of screens to clap their hands to their heads in support.
The decision was combined with the approval of the sole candidate to host the 2030 World Cup. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will co-host a six-nation bid, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay each one of 104 matches.
The South American connection will mark the centenary of Uruguay hosting the first World Cup in 1930.
The decisions complete a mostly opaque 15-month bidding process that Infantino helped lead to Saudi Arabia without a rival candidate, without answering questions, and which rights groups warn will put the lives of migrant workers at risk .
FIFA and Saudi officials have said hosting the 2034 tournament can accelerate change, including more freedoms and rights for women.
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Last year, FIFA cleared a fast track to victory by agreeing to the three-continent hosting plan for the 2030 World Cup. This meant that only football federations from Asia and Oceania were eligible for in the 2034 contest, and FIFA gave them less than four weeks to declare. Only Saudi Arabia did.
Saudi Arabia’s victory will usher in a decade of scrutiny over labor laws and the treatment of workers, mostly from South Asia, needed to help build and upgrade 15 stadiums, as well as hotels and hotel chains. transport before the 104-match tournament.
One of the stadiums is planned to be 350 meters (yards) above the ground in Neom, a futuristic city that does not yet exist, and another named after the crown prince is designed to be atop a 200-meter cliff meters near Riyadh.
During the bid campaign, FIFA has accepted limited scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, which came under heavy criticism at the United Nations this year.
Saudi and international rights groups and activists have warned FIFA that it has failed to learn the lessons of Qatar’s much-criticized preparations to host the 2022 World Cup.
FIFA made a “reckless decision” to approve Saudi Arabia without obtaining public guarantees to protect human rights, an international collective of rights groups said in a statement.
“At every stage of this bidding process, FIFA has shown that its commitment to human rights is a farce,” said Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of labor and sport rights.
The kingdom plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on World Cup-related projects as part of the crown prince’s broader Vision 2030 project that aims to modernize Saudi society and the economy. At its core is sports spending by the $900 billion sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund, which he oversees. Critics have called it a “sporting wash” of the kingdom’s reputation.
The prince, known as MBS, has built close working ties with Infantino since 2017, aligning himself with the organizer of the most watched sporting event rather than directly confronting the established system as he did with the disruptive LIV Golf project.
The result for Saudi Arabia and FIFA has been smooth progress towards victory on Wednesday with limited pushback from football officials, although some of the international players.
The steady flow of Saudi cash into international football will increase.
FIFA created a new World Cup sponsor category for state oil company Aramco, and Saudi funding is planned to secure the 2025 Club World Cup in the United States which is a project for Infantino.
US soccer body CONCACAF signed a multi-year agreement with PIF, Saudi stadiums host Italian and Spanish Super Cup matches, and nearly 50 FIFA member federations have signed working agreements with their counterparts Saudis
The lavish spending by PIF-owned Saudi clubs in the past two years buying and paying players, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Karim Benzema and Sadio Mané, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into European football.
This influence could be key in the talks to agree which months the World Cup will be played in 2034. The November-December slot taken by Qatar in 2022 to avoid the extreme summer heat is complicated in 2034 by the holy month of Ramadan until mid-December and Riyadh hosts the multi-sport Asian Games.
Still, January 2034 could be an option — and probably better for European clubs and leagues — after the International Olympic Committee said it saw few problems clashing with the Salt Lake Winter Games, which opened in February 10, 2034. The IOC also has an important commercial deal with Saudi Arabia, to host the new Olympic Sports Games.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
