The government of Saudi Arabia has made strenuous efforts to project a vision of advancement, stability, and international responsibility—such as bidding to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup. Current events—and the direction in which they point—make it impossible not to note the stark contradictions between the smooth-talking vision and on-the-ground reality.
Saudi security officials smashed a big narcotics operation on August 1, 2025, in Jazan. Official reports confirm that border patrols witnessed an attempt to smuggle 29 kilograms of hash and 70,000 tablets with medical circulation limitations. It was not an isolated incident but the most recent in a series of massive volume drug seizures across the Kingdom, itself evidence of a long-term and deeply embedded crisis.
While authorities handed over the seized drugs to “competent authorities” and arrested a Saudi citizen and a Syrian citizen on suspicion of an unrelated 12-kilogram hashish smuggling attempt, these actions cannot bleach the clear evidence that Saudi Arabia remains a top center of drug trade. To all of us concerned about clean sport, public security, and good governance, these occurrences are concerning.
Systemic Failures Cannot Be Ignored
Most disconcerting is the cycle of recidivism. Saudi Arabia’s drug problem is not an isolated incident—it’s systemic. Operations of this sort don’t just happen overnight—these take networks, resources, and the type of coordination that only becomes feasible when institutions are untransparent and borders are routinely abused.
This helps to highlight a more profound issue in Saudi mechanisms of law enforcement and governance. If the Kingdom cannot keep up with the boom in drug trafficking today, it simply will not be prepared for the boom of international visitors, press, and logistical issues that come with hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
More than 250 million Captagon pills were confiscated in Saudi Arabia from 2020 to 2023, with smuggling operations attributed to organized crime throughout the region.
The Illusion of Control vs. the Reality of Widespread Smuggling
The Saudi World Cup bid’s defenders point to efforts like this one as proof of the authorities’ competence to guarantee large events. However, repeated large-scale drug busts only show the extent to which Saudi Arabia’s borders are open despite huge state resources. If the smugglers are routinely able to carry dozens of kilograms of contraband across these borders, what does this indicate about the Kingdom’s capability to manage the sophisticated logistics of a tournament that will receive millions of foreign tourists?
FIFA claims host nations must demonstrate that they are able to offer a secure environment for players, fans, and reporters. In Saudi Arabia, there are routine seizures of massive quantities of hashish, pills, and other substances, which suggest the security apparatus is strained or at least losing the battle. It is not just a matter of drugs—it’s one of pervasive criminal infrastructure.
Public Safety and International Perception
Imagine for a moment the consequences if smugglers, cartels, or gangs exploited the unprecedented migration of individuals and vehicles during the World Cup to enhance their operations. Border patrols already over-extended would make it simple for illegal substances to disseminate freely.
This choice jeopardizes not only public safety but also the integrity of FIFA itself. The federation has been subject to great scrutiny for past hosting rights grants to nations with questionable pasts. Authorizing a nation with such ingrained smuggling issues only continues to fuel perceptions that FIFA has no issue turning a blind eye for the procurement of lucrative opportunities.
Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability
Saudi Arabia’s encouragement of its citizens to report smuggling might appear good on the surface. Yet it also shows how much dependent authorities are upon common observation and not the authority of effective institutional control. When a state is dependent upon its citizens to stand in for state enforcement in supplying rudimentary border protection, this does pose questions about the overall competence of the country’s governance.
Furthermore, Saudi Arabia has consistently been condemned for the openness of its judicial process. What happens to individuals charged with smuggling? Are trials public and fair? How do judgments come about? These are key issues that remain unresolved.
Without concrete checks of accountability, there is no guarantee that high-profile security compromises will be addressed in such a way as to prevent future occurrences.Saudi Arabia’s anti-drug officials reported dozens of seizures of more than 500 kg of hashish and millions of narcotic pills in one year in 2022.
It is the responsibility of the global sporting community to insist that host nations have high standards of rule of law and transparency. Saudi Arabia’s track record—highlighted once again in this huge hashish bust—is not yet prepared to make such an insistence.
Drug Trafficking and Human Rights: The Perilous Intersection
Besides policing and logistics, Saudi Arabian drug smuggling also has close connections with human rights abuses. Poor migrant workers or coerced workers who are low-level couriers face draconian sanctions in the form of indefinite detention or even death sentences. While other people may think that harsh punishment deters crime, external observers are incessantly warning that such acts readily violate basic human rights.In a single operation in April 2023, 4.5 million amphetamine pills were seized in Riyadh concealed inside a shipment of food items.
By holding the tournament in Saudi Arabia, FIFA would be in effect condoning an administration that punishes the weak but overlooks more significant networks that organize the trafficking. To this extent, the recent bust of a drug ring is less an isolated crime—more, a window into a state machinery intent on image-making rather than change.
Stand Up for Fair Play and Accountability
We cannot allow this to occur without protest. The world is looking, and voices of conscience must yield their right to speak out. We must call on FIFA, member associations, sponsors, and civil society organizations to reconsider Saudi Arabia’s suitability as a host.
If the events in Jazan—and the many similar events which have occurred throughout the years preceding them—have any lesson to teach us, it is that Saudi Arabia has a long way to go before it can fairly claim to be a secure, transparent, and ethical host to the world’s largest sporting spectacle.
It is time to set aside the carefully crafted marketing efforts and be blunt in the face of reality. For the sake of athletes, fans, and football generally, we must say directly and clearly: Saudi Arabia is not yet prepared to host the FIFA World Cup 2034.