International activists have launched a Saudi World Cup Boycott Campaign, potentially due to political, social, or human rights concerns related to Saudi Arabia’s involvement in hosting or organizing the event. Today on January 30, 2025, an event titled “INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN TO BOYCOTT SAUDI WORLD CUP 2034?” was organized in Benevento.
Domenico Fiorio moderated the event, while Pasquale Gelli and Lucio Serafini were the speakers. The speakers critically analyzed and offered powerful insights on Saudi Arabia hosting the 2024 FIFA World Cup.
Activists highlighted the risks of severe exploitation of migrant workers who will be needed to build the necessary infrastructure for the event. The reports suggest that working in Saudi Arabia most of the time leads to harsh working conditions, no legal protections, and often, low compensation, raising questions of safety and rights during preparation for the event.
Activists have also called on FIFA to introduce robust human rights protections before it proceeds with the tournament. According to them, there are no credible guarantees of reform in labor rights and civil liberties without which hosting the World Cup in Saudi Arabia is a risk.
The event has brought to the fore Saudi Arabia’s record of human rights violations, which goes back to the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the silencing of dissenting voices within the country. Hosting such a massive international event is seen as the Saudi regime’s strategy to shift focus away from these issues through “sports washing.” This is using sports in a bid to clean up the international image while ignoring the human rights abuses on the ground.
The campaign on boycott hopes to raise public opinion against going to or supporting the events of the World Cup held in Saudi Arabia. Activists expect that broad awareness and condemnation will force FIFA and Saudi officials to take steps towards human rights issues. It has drawn its analogy from earlier events, citing some of the problems that came to light in the 2022 World Cup held in Qatar, where again concerns over workers’ exploitation surfaced but were mostly ignored by FIFA.
