Why is Saudi Arabia such a controversial host country?
The situation in Saudi Arabia is that there is no freedom of expression, there is no free press, and there is gender inequality. Women and girls have few rights. It is an absolute monarchy. Human rights groups say it has one of the worst human rights records in the world. You are not allowed to express any political opinions, nor are you allowed to criticize the monarchy.
The Saudis might say we are transforming the country, the country is opening up to the world, our society is changing, we are an oil-dependent country, and we want to become a tourist, entertainment, financial and technical destination. The Center is why we invest in sports.
Critics might say that's only part of the story. The biggest part of the story is that you are doing it to wash your image with sports. You use sport to change your image, to project soft power, so when people think of Saudi Arabia, they don't think of human rights abuses, for example, they think of Cristiano Ronaldo, or Formula 1 or golf. I think these are legitimate concerns.
FIFA said human rights were part of the bid evaluation process, but many people believe human rights did not play a sufficient role in the process.
Why has FIFA's process also drawn criticism?
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Jamie Weir talks about Saudi Arabia's bid to host the 2034 World Cup and why it is controversial
After a highly controversial vote in 2010, when Russia got 2018 and Qatar got 2022, we thought that would be a catalyst for change, where everything going forward would be open and transparent. But now we have a situation where everything seems to be done behind closed doors. It is difficult to defend a process whereby there is only one bid for each World Cup.
Surely the number of countries that want to host the World Cup is greater than the number of countries that have applied to host the World Cup in each edition?
For example, in 2030, holding the World Cup on three continents – because there will also be matches in South America, as well as Spain, Portugal and Morocco – would immediately take Europe, Africa and South America out of the equation when it comes to hosting. World Cup in 2034.
FIFA said that due to the principle of rotation between continents, the 2034 tournament should be held in Asia or Oceania. They announced this in October last year. They said that whoever wants to host it has 25 days to submit their bids. Within minutes, Saudi Arabia made its offer. No one else had the time to put a show together because it takes months and months to put a show together. Australia was considering it but decided not to bid so quickly.
It is highly controversial to have a World Cup in Saudi Arabia, but at least if we had an open and transparent process where there were other bids, whether there was media scrutiny, whether there was free and open voting, then we could say that the Kingdom Saudi Arabia won completely fairly.
Despite this, FIFA will say that its auditors concluded that both evaluations were carried out objectively, fairly and transparently.
And the FIFA conference to confirm hosting the World Cup was held online?
Normally, you would have a FIFA conference where all the senior people from the 211 member associations would attend. There will be a lot of journalists there, there will be opportunities for us to talk to a lot of people, and there will be a press conference afterwards. But it's all done online, which in our view means there's less media scrutiny.
FIFA would say it makes more sense in this day and age and we have to be mindful of our carbon footprint to do it virtually.
But should we have reached a situation where we only had an online FIFA Congress, and there was no real voting, but it was done with applause? I would have been much happier if we had a process where there were competing bids, where it wasn't rushed, where we could be subject to media scrutiny and we could ask the right questions and the actual vote was a real ballot vote and we could count who voted and what they won.
What is the position of the Football Association, the Football Association and the Football Association of Wales?
The Football Associations of England, Scotland and Wales backed both bids.
Should the Football Association take a stand? I think a lot of people would say it would be good if they came out and stood up for what they believe in on principle. But I think sometimes things get too political and you have to take into account a lot of other things in the decision-making process.
For example, we know that if England qualifies for the World Cup in 2034, the England team will go there. Will the FA look like hypocrites if they don't support him? We also know that English companies do a lot of business in Saudi Arabia.
The Prime Minister was there on Monday speaking with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, inviting him to a football match in England and strengthening the defense partnership between the two countries. So you could say, well, if everyone is doing business in Saudi Arabia, why isn't football doing business there too?
Will the World Cup be winter?
Traditionally, the World Cup was always held in the summer, until Qatar in 2022 when it moved to the winter. The climate in Saudi Arabia is similar to the climate in Qatar, so it is difficult to see how we can organize the World Cup in the summer in 2024.
I spoke to the president of the Saudi Football Federation, the president of the bid, and they always told me that we are not ruling anything out, we are looking at the possibility of holding the World Cup in the summer.
The international fixture schedule has only been agreed until 2030, so we will have to wait and see, but most observers will tell you we are looking forward to another Winter World Cup.
We already know how crowded the fixture schedule is, with the Champions League expanding too. I think we are looking at the World Cup in January or February.
There are some people – and I'm not one of them – who would say: We liked having the World Cup in the winter in Qatar because the quality of football was better, and because the players were not so tired, because it was the middle of the season. It was long, dark nights in Western Europe, and it was so nice to have a big tournament to watch in the winter. That's the only kind of positive spin I think can be put on it.
How did the Saudi file achieve the highest rating ever from FIFA?
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Hammad Al-Balawi, head of Saudi Arabia's bid to host the 2034 World Cup, defended the process with FIFA and said everyone, including members of the LGBTQ+ community, would be welcome amid accusations of sports whitewashing.
Even though there have only been individual bids for each World Cup, FIFA still says you have to go through the appropriate bidding process. “We will evaluate the bids, and we will send people to bidding countries to take a look at their bids and stadiums.” As part of the bidding process, FIFA is now also considering the human rights of countries applying to host the World Cup finals.
Controversially, in the bid evaluation reports, released around midnight on Friday, Saudi Arabia received the highest mark ever for any bid. I think it was 4.2 out of 5.
The bid evaluation report said that the human rights risks of hosting the World Cup in Saudi Arabia pose a moderate risk. Many people have criticized the process, they have criticized the bid evaluation report.
Is this a sports wash?
This is a really important question. Why does Saudi Arabia want the World Cup? The crown jewels of world sport they want are Formula 1, which they have, and the World Cup, which they are about to get, as well as the Olympics, which is something I want, the Saudi sports minister said solemnly. I'm sure they will look at it in the future.
Why do they want that? Well, the critics will say it's all about sportswashing, because they want to change their image on the world stage. So when people think of Saudi Arabia, they don't think of the oppressive and repressive regime. They think instead of Cristiano Ronaldo, or they think of Lewis Hamilton, or they think of the World Cup.
The Saudis themselves, the Saudi officials I've talked to, will say that's not the case, it's not about sports whitewashing, and that's a really simplistic way of looking at it. “The reason we are doing this is because we want to transform our country and our economy from a country dependent on oil revenues to an economy based on tourism and entertainment. We want to transform Saudi Arabia into a financial and technological center.
When it comes to human rights and reforms, they will tell you that they have made some reforms, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Critics will say that many of these reforms are superficial and were implemented solely for public relations purposes.
And the situation on the ground when it comes to civil liberties and human rights has not really changed in Saudi Arabia.
