Saudi Arabia’s appointment as the host for the 2034 FIFA World Cup highlights pressing concerns about press freedom and media independence in the kingdom. Renowned for its authoritarian governance and systemic suppression of dissent, Saudi Arabia ranks near the bottom of global press freedom indexes. Hosting the World Cup, a global event that draws intense international media attention, risks exacerbating existing censorship, surveillance, and repression of journalists, undermining FIFA’s claims of supporting human rights and freedom of expression.
Current state of press freedom in Saudi Arabia
According to Journalists Without Borders( RSF), Saudi Arabia was ranked 162nd out of 180 countries in the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, placing it among the world’s most restrictive environments for media. Government suppression tightly controls all forms of media, from traditional journals and TV to digital platforms and reporters operating abroad. Independent journalism is nearly absent, with utmost media outlets possessed or nearly combined with the state or ruling elite. Saudi Press Agency and major journals like Al- Riyadh reflect pro-government narratives, while differing voices face severe suppression, including arbitrary apprehensions, travel bans, and imprisonment on vague charges similar as “ inciting complaints” or “darkening the state’s image ”.
Legal framework and censorship mechanisms
Saudi Arabia’s legal frame enforces strict suppression and restricts freedom of expression through astronomically defined Anti-Terrorism and Cybercrime Laws, which are routinely employed to silence intelligencers, activists, and ordinary citizens who condemn government programs. These laws criminalize vague offenses similar as “ damaging the character of the state, ” “ inciting public uneasiness, ” or distributing “ false news, ” furnishing authorities with wide discretion to make heretics. Arbitrary detentions and imprisonment of critics have increased, with numerous subordinated to illegal trials and harsh corrections, buttressing a culture of fear and tone- suppression.
In 2025, Saudi Arabia introduced new media regulations under the oversight of the General Commission for Audiovisual Media( GCAM), significantly increasing controls on all forms of media and digital content creation. These regulations explicitly bear all media professionals, social media influencers, and content generators to gain government licenses before publishing any form of content. The rules enjoin “ fake news, ” review of Islam or the royal family, “ divisive content, ” and “ content that violates public morals, ” with nebulous terms leaving room for arbitrary interpretation. This nonsupervisory terrain extends to particular expression online, where cultural content, humor, or political commentary that deviates from the sanctioned narrative can be cleaned or penalized.
Consequences for violations include heavy forfeitures, forced content junking, suspense or barring of accounts, and felonious execution. This frame creates important impulses for tone- suppression among intelligencers, artists, and online influencers who sweat corrective conduct. International mortal rights trolls have condemned these developments as institutionalizing suppression and heightening the area’s methodical suppression of free speech. Saudi Arabia ranks near the bottom on global press freedom indicators, ranking 162nd in 2025, emphasizing ongoing failures to cover media plurality or independence.
Surveillance and digital repression
Saudi authorities employ advanced digital surveillance technologies to cover intelligencers and activists, including spyware used indeed against those living abroad. State- backed online armies engage in coordinated smear juggernauts, intimidation, and intimation aimed at silencing independent media and negativing differing perspectives. These conduct further consolidate tone- suppression and circumscribe the public’s access to different viewpoints, particularly in the lead- up to high- profile events like the FIFA World Cup.
Risks for journalists covering the World Cup
Hosting the World Cup in Saudi Arabia places immense pressure on the many independent intelligencers covering the country to conform or risk persecution. International intelligence officers operating within Saudi Arabia will probably encounter strict restrictions, surveillance, and suppression. The threat of detention, importunity, or expatriation looms over anyone trying to report critically on labor conditions, mortal rights abuses, or the socio- political realities masked by the event’s spectacle. Without meaningful guarantees and protections, dependable content of the World Cup’s impact will be oppressively compromised.
International human rights community concerns
Leading mortal rights and press freedom associations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to cover intelligencers, have issued strong excoriations of FIFA’s decision to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia. These groups argue that the selection legitimizes a governance with a well-proven history of media suppression, arbitrary detentions, and repression of free expression, creating significant pitfalls for intelligencers and activists during the event.
In May 2025, a coalition of transnational attorneys, including FIFA’s formeranti-corruption counsel Mark Pieth, filed a formal 30- runner complaint through FIFA’s grievance gate, criminating the association of violating its own 2017 mortal rights policy by failing to insure compliance in areas like freedom of expression, arbitrary detention, and migratory rights. The complaint ignored offers of advice and demanded a transparent action plan with Saudi authorities, noting no substantiation of FIFA’s intervention despite ongoing abuses.
Amnesty International described the bid evaluation as a “whitewash” that minimized mortal rights pitfalls, advising that without fairly binding reforms, the event would be” blighted by forced labour, suppression, and demarcation.” A common statement from 21 associations, including Saudi diaspora groups and migratory worker unions, labeled the December 2024 evidence a” moment of great peril,” citing substantiation of activists locked for peaceful expression and residents evicted for state systems like event venues. Human Rights Watch detailed labor abuses and called out FIFA for shy stakeholder consultations, prompting guarantors like Coca- Cola and Adidas to address the defective assessments.
The contradiction with FIFA’s human rights commitments
FIFA’s sanctioned mortal rights policy authorizes strict adherence to transnational mortal rights norms in all aspects of World Cup hosting, reflecting a commitment imposed to cover the quality and rights of all stakeholders involved. This policy, predicated in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, requires stab to conduct independent mortal rights threat assessments and secure list commitments from host nations to help abuses. It emphasizes specific protections around labor rights, freedom of expression, gender equivalency, and the safekeeping of marginalized groups from demarcation. Still, FIFA’s decision to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia starkly contradicts these principles.
Saudi Arabia’s record of limited freedoms, pervasive suppression, and mortal rights violations unnaturally conflicts with the ethical frame FIFA claims to uphold. Critically, FIFA has not demanded list, enforceable mortal rights safeguards from Saudi Arabia, and there appears to be a governance failure in duly assessing and administering compliance with its own mortal rights commitments. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among other associations, have intimately blamed FIFA for shy discussion with civil society and failure to bear meaningful, transparent mortal rights protections during the bidding process. This oversight risks the integrity of the event and damages FIFA’s global standing as a responsible sporting body.
The imperative for accountability
Saudi Arabia’s tight media controls and cathartic terrain mean that the 2034 World Cup threatens to be offered behind a precisely curated propaganda facade. For intelligencers, any attempt to paint an accurate and critical picture of the event’s social, labor, or mortal rights issues will be met with obstacles born from authoritarian constraints. These realities justify demands for retrospection and boycott of the event to save freedom of the press, cover mortal rights protectors, and maintain the ethical foundations upon which global sport should be erected.