Football is supposed to bring people together across borders, cultures, and classes. The World Cup is a festival of inclusion where every fan, worker, and player is significant. But in 2034, FIFA intends to award its showcase tournament to Saudi Arabia, a nation with a track record of mass arrests, migrant exploitation, deadly border violence, and one of the most carbon-intensive infrastructure projects ever conceived for sport.
In August 2025, the Saudi government stated that they had detained 21,997 individuals in one week for breaking residency, labor, and border rules. Of these, 13,434 were held for residency problems, 4,697 for trying to cross borders, and 3,866 for breaking labor rules.
These figures are staggering not because they are extraordinary, but because Saudi Arabia releases them with regularity, week upon week. This normalization of mass arrest lays bare the tension between football’s openness and Saudi Arabia’s exclusion.
A Mass-Arrest State Is Not an Inclusive Host
The World Cup lives on diversity. Millions of fans and laborers move from all continents to fete the game. But Saudi Arabia’s migration strategy criminalizes exactly those groups that will be leaned on to construct stadiums, swab hotels, and serve fans.
In the Interior Ministry’s statistics, almost two out of every three people arrested for attempting to enter illegally were Ethiopian, and more than one-third were Yemeni. They flee conflict and poverty, but are greeted with detention rather than protection. Instead of supporting human rights, the Saudi government criminalizes desperation.
When a state brazenly brags about having apprehended more than 20,000 individuals in a week, it is clear that repression is not the norm but rather a tool of governance. A World Cup under such circumstances threatens to make the tournament a spectacle of exploitation, echoing, and possibly outdoing the worker exploitation scandals of Qatar 2022.
Documented Killings at the Border
In addition to detention, there is deadly violence. Human Rights Watch documented in 2023 that Saudi border guards shot and killed dozens of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers along the Yemen-Saudi border, frequently employing explosive ordnance and shooting unarmed individuals at close range. They included children and women. HRW concluded that the killings seemed “widespread and systematic,” leaving open the prospect of crimes against humanity.
This. Not the record of a secure or moral host for the world’s largest sporting event. FIFA professes to protect “human dignity,” but Saudi Arabia has demonstrated in practice—not rhetoric—that migrant lives are disposable when in the way. Granting the World Cup to a state charged with mass murder is not hypocrisy alone. It puts football at risk of complicity in the cover-up of crimes.
Labor Reforms That Leave Millions Behind
Saudi Arabia says it overhauled its infamous kafala system in 2021, under which foreign workers’ legal status was tied to their employers. But human rights organizations note that the overhauls were incomplete and left out domestic workers, farm workers, and others who are still attached to their employers. Even for those included, in effect, workers continue to encounter obstacles to job changes or departures from the country.
This is a grave concern in a nation with more than 13 million foreign nationals—about one-third of the entire population. They are the unseen driving force behind the Saudi economy, but their protections are spotty at best. If stadiums, hotels, airports, and rail networks are constructed on this basis of vulnerability, then the 2034 World Cup could turn into another chapter of exploitation and abuse.
A Mega-Event That Threatens the Climate
The Saudi bid involves constructing or reconstructing approximately 15 stadiums with enormous extensions of hotels, airports, and city infrastructure. Independent experts caution this may turn out to be one of the most environmentally damaging sporting events in history, considering the concrete-intensive building, long-distance travel requirements, and use of energy-intensive air conditioning in blistering desert temperatures.
Saudi authorities use the language of “sustainability,” but the truth is evident: concrete, steel, and fossil fuel power the master plan. The laborers worst affected by this environmental pressure will be the same migrant workers already vulnerable to arrest and abusive sponsorship regimes. Football in the 21st century does not have the right to exacerbate both human rights abuses and climate breakdown at the expense of spectacle.
What This Means for Workers Before a Ball Is Kicked
The signs are already present. According to past Gulf mega-events, the lead-up to 2034 will virtually certainly witness:
- Debt-fostered hiring of African and Asian workers who pay illegal recruitment fees to obtain employment.
- Continued employer control in practice despite official reform, hindering employees from switching jobs or going home.
- Mass campaigns of arrest, such as 21,997 in a week, instilled fear and silenced grievances on non-payment of wages or unsafe working conditions.
- Lack of transparency, as Saudi Arabia suppresses unions, muzzles dissent, and punishes critics, and independent monitoring is almost impossible.
In other words, by the time fans turn up in 2034, potentially thousands of workers might already have been exploited, harmed, or killed.
The Values Case for a Boycott
The World Cup must be about dignity, solidarity, and fair play. The hosting of Saudi Arabia undermines these values on three counts:
- First, human rights: A country that detains tens of thousands each week, is accused of slaughtering migrants at its borders, and employs millions in precarious working conditions can’t believably stage a tournament intended to promote inclusion.
- Second, responsibility to the planet: Constructing more than a dozen stadiums in one of the hottest parts of the globe, with energy-intensive building and air conditioning, is a global climate mockery.
- Third, football integrity: Repeating the mistakes of Qatar 2022, but on an even bigger scale, erodes trust in FIFA and undermines fans’ faith in the sport’s governance.
It’s Time to Boycott Saudi Arabia’s 2034 FIFA World Cup
The reality is stark. Saudi Arabia arrested 21,997 residents in a single week on charges of residency, labor, and border offenses. Hundreds of deaths of migrants on its borders have been documented by human rights organizations.
Millions of foreign workers are still stuck in abusive systems even after reform attempts. The nation is set to construct 15 new stadiums and massive infrastructure projects, which experts caution could make the 2034 tournament one of history’s most environmentally damaging sporting events ever held.
These are not football values. These are repression, exploitation, and the destruction of the environment. The World Cup is not a tournament; it is a symbol of human capacity to unite in happiness and mutual respect. Making it available to Saudi Arabia sends the wrong message. For the sake of workers, for the sake of human rights, for the sake of the planet, there is only one ethical choice: Boycott Saudi Arabia’s 2034 FIFA World Cup.