While the decision by Fifa to award the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia was well-flagged in advance, it was nonetheless a sobering sight when the proposal was waved through with minimal opposition this week. Of the 211 federations that make up Fifa, only the Norwegian FA took any kind of stand on the matter, making them the sole abstention from Wednesday’s vote.
Saudi Arabia’s desire to use sport as an engine for its development throughout the 21st century is plain for all to see. Since 2021, the Saudi government has invested an estimated € 5.9bn in bringing high-profile sporting events to the gulf state. Boxing, golf, Formula One motor racing, UFC – all have seen their revenues hugely inflated by the Saudi kingdom’s wish to align itself with their highest-profile stars. Since no sport is bigger than football, the World Cup was always going to be next.
Fifa, led by its Swiss-Italian president Gianni Infantino, has been moving in this direction for years. In April of this year it announced a sponsorship deal with Aramco, the Saudi state oil company, worth in the region of € 95m a year. Infantino has long-standing links with the Saudi government, pointedly sitting between crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman and Vladimir Putin at the 2018 World Cup. Bringing the World Cup to Saudi Arabia has been his pet project as president.
The Saudi bid featured 11 stadiums that have yet to be built, one of them in a city that doesn’t even exist yet. The human toll of all the building work that needs to be carried out over the next 12 years will likely never be known. The fact that an estimated 6,500 workers died ahead of the Qatar World Cup does not bode well.
That this decision has happened so easily, despite repeated warnings from organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is a dispiriting sign of the Saudis’ increasing hold over world sport, as well of the willingness – even eagerness – of sport’s governing bodies to facilitate them in that project regardless of the human cost.