Saudi Arabia’s official media recently featured what appeared to be ordinary crime reportage. A Medina citizen was arrested for selling hashish and over 1,400 controlled pills. Two Ethiopians were held in Asir for trying to smuggle 16 kilograms of qat. The authorities triumphantly declared that initial procedures had been completed, suspects sent to the prosecutors, and hotlines for citizens to report such offenses. At first glance, these headlines seem trivial: a nation fighting drugs just like everywhere else.
But the timing and context of such announcements say something more. As Saudi Arabia readies itself to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the Kingdom is presenting a finely polished face to the world. Presenting its war against drug use and crime, Saudi leaders aim to project stability, security, and world preparedness.
But these cleansed vignettes are hiding the darker reality: behind the veneer of “law and order,” the regime still carries out mass executions, muzzles critics, tortures activists, and exploits migrant workers. These facts render Saudi Arabia completely unsuitable to stage the world’s largest sporting event.
A Nation Obsessed with Appearances
Saudi Arabia’s monarchy is aware of the leverage that global opinion holds. Foreign headlines reverberate with such terms as “hashish arrest in Medina” or “qat smugglers arrested,” while the nation continues to set records for executions at the same time. Amnesty International registered 345 executions in 2024 alone, the most in decades, with two-thirds being for drug-related crimes, most of them nonviolent. At least 180 additional people had been executed through mid-2025.
The hypocrisy is jarring: Saudi Arabia parades its self-control over minor drug offenses while deploying its justice system as a weapon of political repression and against vulnerable populations. Publicizing small-time arrests is propaganda, assuring FIFA and the international football public that the Kingdom is “safe.” But beneath this staged safety is systemic brutality.
Sportswashing Through the World Cup
It has a term: sportswashing. Repressive governments employ big sporting events to mend their image. With the 2034 FIFA World Cup hosting, Saudi Arabia aims to trade headlines of torture, executions, and repression of women for pictures of sports arenas, cheering crowds, and unity of the world.
Human Rights Watch has warned that Saudi Arabia is exploiting sport to obscure its human rights abuses. Amnesty International condemned FIFA’s evaluation of Saudi’s bid as “an astonishing whitewash,” noting that critical risks. Such as migrant exploitation, silencing of dissent, and forced evictions, were largely ignored. Instead of accountability, Saudi Arabia receives legitimacy, aided by FIFA’s complicity.
Executions at Record Levels
The law-and-order track record disintegrates when tested against execution data. In 2025 alone, Human Rights Watch recorded 241 executions through August, including the harrowing case of journalist Turki al-Jasser, who was executed in June for revealing royal corruption.
Over the past decade, Saudi Arabia has carried out more than 1,800 state-sanctioned killings, placing it among the world’s most prolific executioners. The brutality often targets marginalized communities. In March 2022, 81 men were executed in a single day, many belonging to the Shia minority, accused of protest activity. In 2016, cleric Nimr al-Nimr was among 47 executed in one mass purge.
So when Saudi officials tout the arrest of two qat smugglers, they hide the fact that the Kingdom puts more people to death in a single year than most nations collectively, usually for political crimes or nonviolent offenses.
Systemic Repression Beyond Executions
Saudi Arabia’s record is not just executions.
- Crackdown on Women’s Rights Activists (2018–2019): Campaigners who advocated the right to drive or opposed male guardianship legislation were arrested, tortured, beaten, and sexually harassed. Accounts report the use of electric shock, flogging, and mock executions.
- Silencing Journalists and Dissidents: Beyond Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in 2018, journalists like Turki al-Jasser face death sentences simply for exposing corruption. Peaceful activists endure long prison terms handed down by Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court.
- Migrant Exploitation: Millions of migrant laborers are still stuck under the sponsorship kafala system. Most face forced labor, wage theft, passport confiscation, and death in construction work linked to Vision 2030 and stadium building. Labor unions are still prohibited, and appeals to the ILO showcase forced labor on a national level.
These abuses aren’t ancillary; they’re structural pillars of Saudi rule. The regime imposes obedience through repression at every turn, all the while splashing headlines about small-time drug busts across the wires to distract the international community.
Why These Drug Arrest Headlines Matter
On first glance, an arrest of a hashish peddler or qat traffickers might seem irrelevant to FIFA. In reality, however, such reports reveal the inconsistencies that disqualify Saudi Arabia from hosting the World Cup.
1. The PR Trap
By heralding small wins in crime fighting, Saudi Arabia tries to reassure FIFA and the world: “Look, we are safe.” True safety, however, is not calculated in terms of small drug busts; it is calculated in terms of whether the fans, the workers, and the players can exercise free speech, protest peacefully, or live without fear of being put to death.
2 . Selective Justice
The regime boasts about narcotics arrests while concealing its own offenses, mass killings, torture, and oppression of minorities. Why does the justice apparatus prosecute the people for hashish, yet fail to prosecute officials for killing journalists or torturing female activists?
3. A Warning to Fans and Workers
If Saudi nationals are prosecuted for minor quantities of drugs, what will become of international supporters in 2034 who bring beer, show solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities, or speak out against the regime? FIFA is putting supporters, players, and journalists at risk of entering a legal framework that criminalizes free speech and punishes it with medieval sanctions.
The Case for Boycotting Saudi Arabia 2034
Saudi Arabia’s drug arrest headlines are not safety stories; they are propaganda. They cover up that:
- 345 were executed in 2024, most for non-violent drug offenses.
- 241 others were killed by mid-2025, some of them journalists, protesters.
- Women’s rights activists are tortured for calling for basic freedoms.
- Migrant workers are exploited in forced labor systems.
- Free expression and LGBTQ+ rights continue to be criminalized.
Granting the World Cup to such a state is an explicit endorsement of repression. Fans, players, and governments cannot let football become a mechanism for authoritarian image-washing.
Sport Cannot Whitewash Brutality
Saudi Arabia wishes the world to view hashish arrests and hotline numbers. It wishes the world to believe it is safe, orderly, and modern. But the reality is self-evident: it is a state where bulk executions are common, dissent is stifled, women are muzzled, and migrants are exploited.
The 2034 FIFA World Cup provides Saudi Arabia with its greatest platform so far for sportswashing. Unless civil society, athletes, and fans get together to boycott, the World Cup will endorse repression instead of celebrating sport. Football should unite, inspire, and emancipate, not whitewash authoritarian regimes. The world needs to hold the line: No World Cup for Saudi Arabia.