Football is at a crossroads in the globe. As the global platform of justice, happiness, and global oneness, FIFA sacrificed its integrity by choosing Saudi Arabia—a country with a terrible record in human rights—host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Staging this global football event in Saudi Arabia undermines the values football would otherwise embrace.
The Saudi Money Machine and FIFA’s Integrity Crisis
At the heart of this scandal is Saudi Arabia’s behemoth Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has quickly become the financial underpinning for a majority of FIFA’s projects, including the revamped Club World Cup. Without Saudi investment, this summer’s Club World Cup would have incurred major organizational and commercial setbacks.
The $1 billion DAZN broadcasting deal—conveniently featuring an ownership share for PIF—is symptomatic of how deeply entangled FIFA has become with Saudi interests. These deals are not symbols of international sporting development; they are politically and economically convenient arrangements.
A “Deeply Flawed” Bidding Process
Let’s not pretend that Saudi Arabia won the World Cup bid on merit or global demand. The only other feasible bidder, Australia, pulled out after FIFA’s deadline gave them less than a month to draft an offer—an unlikely task. The alleged “bidding process” was hardly more than a rubber stamp endorsement of Saudi ambitions, not a real competition of which nation deserves the honor.
FIFA’s own report card judged Saudi Arabia record highs. But little is needed to cover up the smell of a scripted handover, finalized not in ballots but in mere acclamation—applause rather than democracy. Only Norway’s football association had the honesty to abstain and openly condemned the non-democratic selection process.
Sportswashing: A Powerful Trend Becomes Even Stronger
This is not about football; this is about Sportwashing—the use of sporting events to distract from human rights abuses and environmental destruction. Saudi Arabia’s regime has spent billions on golf, Formula One, boxing, and most recently, football, all in an attempt to clean its global image. Granting them the 2034 World Cup is not merely complicity with these efforts—it is its zenith.
The Saudi dictatorship continues to ignore elementary freedoms: suppressing dissent, silencing the media, and denying women and minorities equal rights. The World Cup should never be used to justify such a dictatorship in the eyes of the world. When FIFA granted the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, the world learned the dangers of ignoring human rights for the sake of money and spectacle. Do we need to commit the same mistake so soon?
Environment and Player Welfare Risks Ignored
This World Cup will not only sully the reputation of FIFA; it’ll ruin the planet. To take the tournament from seven games in a single city to 63 in 11 cities—transporting players, officials, and spectators around far-flung points—is a jest of any environmental awareness.
Player unions are rightfully worried about this growth. Players are fatigued by crowded schedules of football that harm their well-being and careers. FIFA, on the other hand, keeps pushing for inflated, profit-oriented tournaments without listening to those who play the sport.
A Sport Held Hostage by Money
Let’s call it as it is: Saudi Arabia wasn’t chosen because it’s the future of football. It was chosen because FIFA wants Saudi money—plain and simple. The PIF are bankrolling competitions. Saudi-backed clubs are signing players for hundreds of millions. Streaming contracts, sponsorships, and tie-ups all feed into Riyadh’s coffers.
PIF provided a $1 billion injection to DAZN, the tournament’s main broadcaster, soon after agreeing to broadcast the Club World Cup. Coincidence or co-ordination? FIFA insists they are unconnected, but such protests are nothing less than laughable. A “marriage of convenience” certainly—one FA source described it thus—but one which presents football fans around the world with a rich display of disdain.
The Fans Deserve Better
Football has long been the people’s game—a workers’ game—that was the property of all parts of the world. But new FIFA is selling that motto for oil money. Fans from Europe, South America, and Africa are neglected for expansion markets in the Gulf. Admission prices will soar, fan accessibility will shrink, and the true spirit of past tournaments will be sacrificed.
Already, Saudi-branded Club World Cup ticket sales have been sluggish. Global interest has been muted. Why? Because fans can tell when they’re being manipulated. They know that this World Cup isn’t about sport—it’s about money and power.
The Hypocrisy of “Growing the Game”
FIFA and Gianni Infantino claim that this competition will “make football truly global.” But at whose cost? A competition based on autocracy and petrodollars is not the future—it is the past. It is the same tired argument we saw with the Olympics in China and the World Cup in Russia. Did those regimes get softer or more liberal? No—worse, they got repressive.
Football cannot be the excuse that legitimates a government where journalists are accused of murder, and activists are imprisoned. Human rights groups like Amnesty International and Fair Square have warned against sports organizations letting dictatorial regimes co-opt sports. FIFA blights these warnings at its own peril.
FIFA Must Reverse this Decision
In protest of FIFA’s selection of Saudi Arabia as host of the 2034 World Cup, I call upon FIFA, its affiliates, and the world of football fans to insist that this decision be overturned. The process was not democratic. The player and environmental risks are intolerable. The host country’s human rights record is unacceptable.
Football is worth more than this. The World Cup should show the best of human nature—not be a monster billboard for greed and oppression. FIFA has a choice to make: the integrity of the sport or the exhilaration of Saudi wealth. History will not be kind to those who value profit over principle.