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Amnesty International said hosting the tournament in the Gulf country of Saudi Arabia would lead to “severe and widespread” human rights violations.
FIFA must halt the process of picking Saudi Arabia as hosts of the 2034 World Cup unless major human rights reforms are announced before the vote next month, Amnesty International and the Sport & Rights Alliance (SRA) have said.
Football’s world governing body awarded the 2030 World Cup to Morocco, Spain and Portugal in October last year while Saudi Arabia is the lone bidder for the 2034 edition.
Amnesty and the SRA said they had evaluated the human rights strategies proposed by the bidding countries and concluded in a new report that neither bid adequately outlined how they would meet the human rights standards required by FIFA.
They said the risks were far greater in Saudi Arabia and hosting the tournament in the Gulf country would lead to “severe and widespread” human rights violations.
“There will be a real and predictable human cost to awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without obtaining credible guarantees of reform,” Steve Cockburn, Amnesty’s head of labour rights and sport, said in a statement.
“Fans will face discrimination… migrant workers will face exploitation, and many will die.
“FIFA must halt the process until proper human rights protections are in place to avoid worsening an already dire situation.”
FIFA said the bid evaluation reports for the 2030 and 2034 World Cup would be published ahead of its extraordinary Congress on Dec. 11.
“FIFA is implementing thorough bidding processes for the 2030 and 2034 editions of the FIFA World Cup,” a FIFA spokesperson said.
“(It is) in line with previous processes for the selection of hosts for the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada and the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.”
The World Cup hosts are set to be officially appointed at the FIFA Congress and Saudi Arabia’s bid is almost certain to succeed due to the absence of any other expressions of interest before FIFA’s deadline late last year.
Saudi Arabia is spending billions to transform its global image from a country known for strict religious restrictions and human rights abuses into a tourism and entertainment hub.
However, it narrowly failed to win a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council last month.
(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – Reuters)
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