Saudi Arabia to be handed 2034 World Cup despite widespread concern

Saudi Arabia will today be handed the 2034 World Cup when it is quietly ushered in ‘by acclamation’ at an online FIFA Congress.

The Middle East nation is the sole bidder for the competition in 10 years’ time and will be confirmed by a round of applause from delegates in what seems a fairly absurd way of deciding which country gets to stage football’s greatest show.

Spain, Portugal and Morocco will be handed the 2030 World Cup with FIFA bundling the two events together. By also staging a game in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina to mark the centenary of the first World Cup, it means FIFA’s rotation rules effectively ruled out most other continents for 2034.

FIFA’s decision to open the process for 2034 with just a 25-day deadline for potential bidders to submit documents also reduced the playing field.

Australia and New Zealand were keen but couldn’t meet the requirements in that time period. Saudi Arabia’s bid was, curiously, ready to go and, with the backing of the Asian Football Federation, they marched on unopposed.

Human rights assessment questioned

Concerns about human rights in Saudi Arabia persist. FIFA’s ‘independent’ assessment, conducted by a Saudi-based company, was dismissed as “fake” by Human Rights Watch with a repeat of many of the issues faced by migrant workers at Qatar 2022 feared.

There is also the issue of when the World Cup will be staged, and if it will be in 2034 at all.

The climate means it will have to be in the European winter but November and December clash with the holy month of Ramadan, meaning it could be pushed back to January and February 2035.

Olsson has concerns

Saudi Arabia’s bid appears to have been driven by controversial president Gianni Infantino and UEFA’s former general secretary Lars-Christer Olsson has concerns.

“When I see the handling of this particular vote, there are bad signs,” he told The Times. “It’s not corrupt as it was in [former presidents] João Havelange and Sepp Blatter’s time, but it is bothering me that it is moving in a similar direction.

“It’s more and more looking like Fifa during Havelange’s time when a lot of things were decided by acclamation.”

He added: “You should not vote by acclamation, you should vote by having a proper voting system. That is the only way for those who are against it to show they are against it. Otherwise it will just be seen as a unanimous decision for Saudi in Fifa’s records.

“But a lot of associations are just following Fifa, looking for something for themselves. It’s a bargaining carousel. People are forgetting their principles, the things that are the foundation of their organisation and what they should do to be true to those.”