On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia remained the only applicant for the 2034 FIFA World Cup, when Australia withdrew its application intentions.
The board of the international football association Fifa decided to speed up the application schedule at the beginning of October. Time to apply There was less than a month left to apply for the world’s biggest sports event. Tuesday was the last day to submit an application.
At the beginning of October, Fifa also decided on the 2030 World Cup hosts. They are organized on three different continents and in six different countries. Since the games are played in Europe, Africa and the opening matches in South America, according to Fifa’s rotation policy, it was only possible to choose a country from Oceania or Asia as the host of the 2034 World Cup according to the association’s rules.
In practice, this meant that after Australia’s withdrawal, the only option left was Saudi Arabia. FIFA president Gianni Infantino also said on Tuesday on his own Instagram account that Saudi Arabia will organize the games.
FIFA’s actions have aroused astonishment. CEO of Football Association Australia James Johnson was surprised by the acceleration of the application schedule. Johnson had analyzed the situation and felt that it would not have been possible for Australia to win the World Cup.
– We have to be realistic. The Saudis had a strong application. They have a lot of resources. They are not only related to the 2034 World Cup. They are also disrupting European club football at the moment, Johnson said, referring to how many football superstars have moved to Saudi Arabia.
Examples include, among others Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
– The Saudi Arabian administration prioritizes investment in football at every level. It’s hard to compete against that, Johnson said.
Did a dissertation on the World Cup and Fifa’s activities Sami Kolamo criticizes recent decisions.
– Fifa’s operations are constantly going in a worse direction ethically, in environmental matters and in terms of football. Saudi Arabia has the same problems as Qatar and on an even bigger scale, says Tampere University docent of media culture Kolamo and refers to the previous World Cup that erupted last December.
According to Kolamo, now in Fifa the competition host situation was played out so that only one desired applicant remained.
– Let’s get the desired applicant for the World Cup and then he will also be selected, Kolamo evaluates Fifa’s actions.
Also the chairman of the Ball Association Ari Lahti is disappointed with Fifa’s actions. He has less than a month to apply to host the World Cup in a very short period of time.
– The application process was quite strange in the sense that the applicants had to register very quickly, Lahti states.
Lahti sees Fifa’s actions as a step backwards from what has been said and done before. Lahti refers, for example, to the selection of the hosts of the 2026 World Cup. Lahti himself was voting on whether the trio of Canada, Mexico and the United States or Morocco would be chosen as the hosts. The choice was in favor of the joint application of the North American countries with 134–65 votes.
According to the head of the football association, the votes of all member countries were visible to everyone at that time after the voting result.
– This application process was decided very quickly due to closed doors. It doesn’t match the way I imagined myself, where Fifa is going, says Lahti.
Human rights organization: Fifa violates its own policies
During the previous World Cup in Qatar, migrant workers who died in construction work and the country’s otherwise weak human rights situation came to the fore.
Saudi Arabia has also been accused of human rights violations. The most famous case is the reporter Jamal Khashoggi murder. Khashoggi, a journalist who criticized the Saudi Arabian regime, was murdered in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. According to Western intelligence officials, the prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder.
Human rights organization Human Rights Watch stated on Monday, that Fifa violates its own human rights policies by allowing the World Cup to be organized by Saudi Arabia. Human Rights Watch reminded that Fifa’s new application principles state that the host of the competition should undertake to restore international human rights and labor rights principles defined by the UN.
According to Human Rights Watch, under Prince Bin Salman, there have been mass executions in Saudi Arabia, women’s rights have been trampled on, and thousands of migrants have been killed on the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Same-sex relationships are crimes punishable by even the death penalty.
Ari Lahti, on the other hand, singles out the American Conducted annually by the Cato Institute of the Human Freedom Index. All the Nordic countries are in the top 12. Qatar, on the other hand, is 129th and Saudi Arabia 159th. The list includes a total of 165 countries.
– In that sense, we are now taking the back pack. The basics have been left in the background, says Lahti.
In Kolamo’s opinion, the selection of the World Cup host could be delayed based on human rights issues.
– Fifa could check its human rights criteria and see if the human rights issues are in order. Then they could think about giving the World Cup to Saudi Arabia. Apparently, human rights issues have been outsourced to human rights organizations that criticize FIFA, Kolamo updates.
The wishes for Infantino have not come true
Criticism has been aimed especially at the chairman of Fifa To Gianni Infantino. He was elected to the leadership of the sports organization, which was mired in corruption scandals, in 2016. At that time, there were cautious hopes that Fifa’s operations would change for the better.
However, the uproar in Qatar last December about the rainbow ribbons of the European teams reduced confidence in Infantino. For example, the German Football Association announced even before the World Cup that it no longer supports the Italian-Swiss lawyer Infantino.
Lahti reminds us that Infantino has also done good things in his era. The Finnish boss highlights how the monetary grants distributed by Fifa are controlled more tightly with the reforms made by Infantino. Applying for the World Cup was also made more transparent before the events of the last month.
– I’m a little disappointed that these things were handled out of the public eye. We somehow went back to the old days. I would not have thought that Infantino would do something like this, says Lahti.
Kolamo reminds that Saudi Arabia also has influence within Fifa. According to Kolamo, Visit Saudi, which promotes tourism in Saudi Arabia, is one of Fifa’s main sponsors in the World Cup, and the president of the Saudi Arabian Football Association is part of the 37-member Fifa board. Infantino is also a good friend of Prince Bin Salman.
– Fifa’s operations are going in a non-transparent direction under Infantino’s leadership. A similar insider alliance is being built with Saudi Arabia as was done with Qatar, Kolamo insists.
A fiery speech about the future from a researcher
According to Lahti, Palloliitto now intends to be in contact with the Nordic countries and certain Northern European countries. They plan to see how the events of recent times can be responded to and Nordic values defended. Of course, Lahti is aware that the Nordic countries are in the minority in Fifa.
The chairman still believes that some kind of resistance to recent World Cup decisions will still be seen. At least so that the events of the last month will be discussed with Fifa decision-makers.
– I don’t think this thing can be swallowed without biting. Efforts have been made to make decision-making more transparent and thereby more accepted. Now we are going backwards and in the wrong direction in matters that have been important to football and Fifa, says Lahti.
Kolamo reminds us that the Nordic countries think differently than the rest of the world.
– Saudi Arabia has many supporters in Asia and Africa. They see the Middle East as a connecting factor between the northern and southern worlds, Kolamo describes.
Kolamo fears that discussions related to Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the World Cup will end up in the same kind of jingle as in the case of the World Cup in Qatar.
– I think the discussion will remain at the level that “things will be clarified, Saudi Arabia will be discussed and Saudi Arabia will promise different things,” Kolamo illustrates.
According to the researcher, the future of international football does not look good.
– If you think about major global social problems and talk about, for example, human rights or climate change, the biggest umbrella organization in sports doesn’t seem to do anything about such things. On the contrary, Kolamo downloads.
– The World Cup is an important event in terms of cohesion. Football brings people together. It is the most followed sport in the world. At the same time, soccer and the World Cup could do a lot of good. Rather, let’s go after the money.