BUCKLE UP – THE following week may mark a new low in the history of Fifa.
Next Wednesday, all 211 members of Fifa will be asked to declare Saudi Arabia as hosts of the 2034 World Cup not by rigorous debate and vote but by acclamation at a virtual meeting.
Thus one of the most consequential sporting decisions of the decade will be made by a round of applause on Zoom.
The absence of an in-person gathering means the media won’t be present either, and so Fifa president Gianni Infantino won’t face any questions over this monumental decision.
Not that we should be particularly surprised: Infantino, along with Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin, has largely done away with media engagements, and is understood to be stung by how the English-language press covered his I Have A Fever Dream speech on the eve of the Qatar World Cup.
Gianni prefers to communicate with the world using his truly prolific Instagram account, and it was on Instagram he last year announced that Saudi Arabia would host the 2034 World Cup, more than a year prior to the necessary formalities.
Those formalities are playing out now, and they will culminate in next Wednesday’s global acclaim for Saudi 2034. Maybe Gianni will launch a catchy social media campaign to buttress support, #ClapForSaudiArabia. Everyone with a pair of hands can take part – so that’s everyone who hasn’t been caught stealing by the Saudi regime.
Of course Infantino’s Instagram announcement last year would only have looked premature if there was any competition, but Saudi Arabia are the only bidder for the ’34 World Cup.
In another breathtaking moment of opaque Fifa dealing, they announced the hosts for the World Cups of 2030 and 2034 would be voted upon at the same time. Declarations of interest were invited from 5 October last year, with the deadline set curiously early at 31 October – just the 11 years in advance of the latter tournament.
Only federations from Oceania and Asia were eligible to pitch for the ’34 World Cup, given Fifa’s rule of rotating the World Cup around confederations. 2034 might have seemed early for a return to the Gulf – coming as it does just 12 years after Qatar – but South America signed away their rights to host a tournament by agreeing to host just three games across Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina in 2030, after which the tournament will move on to Morocco, Spain, and Portugal.
Saudi Arabia were curiously prepared to launch their interest in hosting the World Cup last October, with Australia dropping their interest, admitting that the Saudis had “a strong bid.”
They was still subject to a technical evaluation by Fifa, a risk-assessment document which was quietly ushered out to the world at 12.30am Swiss time last Friday night/Saturday morning.
Not that Fifa will say they were burying bad news: the Saudi bid was given a record score of 4.2 out of five, despite the fact that eight of the 15 proposed stadia have yet to be built. One of the unbuilt stadia is in Neom, a city that has yet to be built. The Saudis were given a higher score than was given to the 2026 World Cup, which had all of its selected stadia already built.
Stadia were deemed to be a ‘medium’ risk by Fifa, which is the same status the governing body have attached to Saudi’s human rights.
Fifa say the Saudis have given various commitments to protecting human rights, specifically to ensure decent working and living conditions for everyone involved in delivering the World Cup, and committing to freedom of expression in all activities relating to the tournament.
Fifa have a narrow focus here, seeking assurances over the rights of only the humans who will play a part in delivering their quadrennial, money-printing jamboree. The same Fifa will then tell you of how football can transcend mere sport, however, and become a force for peace. How often have you heard Infantino tell you of how #FootballUnitesTheWorld?
So which is it? If this game truly articulates some fundamental human dignity, how can Fifa concern themselves only with the rights of migrant workers who find themselves building football stadia rather than roads? Or is this the millionth example of Fifa’s characteristic, breathtaking expediency?
Fifa’s evaluation of the Saudi bid is a very obvious instance of judging Saudi Arabia by what they are saying, rather than what they are doing.
You’d imagine any evaluation of human rights and commitment to freedom of expression might mention a couple of issues of concern, like the fact that 12 football fans were jailed in Saudi Arabia in April for singing a song commemorating a religious figure of importance in Shia Islam.
Steve Cockburn of Amnesty International has dismissed Fifa’s evaluation report as a “whitewash” of Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights, who has been clear on the consequences of hosting a World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
“Fans will face discrimination, residents will be forcibly evicted, migrant workers will face exploitation, and many will die.”
Many will die.
An ITV documentary aired in October reported that 21,000 people have died in construction across Saudi Arabia since the kingdom launched their Vision 2030 document in 2016, and show construction workers in Neom toiling across 16-hour days in brutal heat. The kingdom have dismissed this as “misinformation.”
If all of this sounds familiar – the heat, the working conditions, the claim and counter-claim about worker deaths – it is because this hell was deemed a price worth paying for the Qatar World Cup.
Fifa’s recent response to this has been to reject calls from their own sub-committee to compensate injured workers and bereaved families involved in the construction of the Qatar World Cup, and then to commit to a World Cup of an even larger scale in which migrant workers face the same risks.
Fifa will celebrate the bonanza of getting into bed with the Saudis – they have already struck a sponsorship deal worth $100 million with Aramco – and the evaluation document forecasts the Saudi World Cup will deliver a 32% increase in revenue from ticketing and a 10% bump in TV audience on the upcoming World Cup.
Many of these funds will be distributed by Fifa for worth football projects across the world, but at what point does this money cost more than its worth? The disbursement of these monies by the Fifa president also fosters a kind of patronage relationship, which in turn makes that president more secure in their position.
Advocacy group Fair Square issued a hefty piece of research in October which argued that Fifa is no longer fit to govern the sport, and next Wednesday’s acclaim strengthens that reality.
How can a World Cup that respected human rights groups state plainly will cost lives be arranged with such little true oversight or accountability? How have we arrived at a point where the organisation are not even obliged to hold a press conference?
There will be a reckoning at some point in the future, when this is finally acknowledged as the sick absurdity it is.
But we are not at that stage yet, and so next Wednesday, Fifa will confirm once again they place a greater value on money than they do on the dignity of human life, and they will be soundtracked to the applause of the 211 members supposed to hold Fifa to account.
This is dystopian.
Cab driver in Cork told me that when Keane signed for Man Utd, his dad came out of the toilet in the local pub with his lad in his hand saying, “Bet ye never thought this was worth 3 million pound”. I hope it’s a true story.
My favourite Keane quote is when his wife asked him how come he has his kids names tattooed on his arm but not hers. His reply was ‘I’ll never divorce them but I might divorce you’ :)
Not to be pedantic but I think it was ‘they’ll always be my kids…’
Dead right. I knew I was close
Happy Birthday Keano .
Mick McCarty “Where’s your respect?”
Roy “Where’s your first touch?”.
Video footage Football Gold…Keano love him hate him…still a LEGEND.
10 and 17 get my vote! Brill
“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men……..”
Langer
Bogus dude!
Dude, I’ll send the evil robot us’s around to you.
13 14 and 20. Ya won’t beat a bit of Irish humour!
love them all, vintage Keano !!!
Happy birthday to possibly the last real hardman football will see
“in the middle of the perk”……