Accusations have been made by leading human rights activist group, Human Rights Watch, claiming that FIFA overlooked its own regulations during the selection process for hosting the 2030 and 2034 World Cup tournaments.
Securing hosting rights for the centennial FIFA World Cup in 2030, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco were announced as the sole candidate by the FIFA Council, needing only the formalities of a successful bidding process and ratification by next year’s Congress.
Controversially, the plan includes special one-off matches in the South American nations of Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay.
FIFA also imposed a strict deadline of October 31 for countries to express interest in hosting the 2034 World Cup, specifying that it can only be held in Asia or Oceania.
Following this, Saudi Arabia promptly declared its bid and received support from the Asian Football Confederation. The only potential challenge is an Australian-led project, though it is unlikely to gather sufficient support.
According to Human Rights Watch, the process has violated the May 2017 version of FIFA’s Human Rights Policy, particularly pointing to Article Seven, which states that “where the national context risks undermining FIFA’s ability to ensure respect for internationally recognised human rights, FIFA will constructively engage with the relevant authorities and other stakeholders and make every effort to uphold its international human rights responsibilities”.
The non-Governmental organisation also referenced the Key Principles of the Reformed Bidding Process published for the 2026 edition, awarded to the United States, Mexico, and Canada, in which FIFA President Gianni Infantino and secretary general Fatma Samoura stated that the host must “formally commit to conducting their activities based on sustainable event management principles and to respecting international human rights and labour standards according to the United Nations’ Guiding Principles”.
They criticized the “unreasonably tight” deadline set for the 2034 World Cup and claimed that so far FIFA had “failed to apply these principles in the award of the 2030 and 2034 World Cups”.
Human Rights Watch also drew a contrast to the double award of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively back in 2010, widely viewed as contributing to the downfall of disgraced former FIFA President Sepp Blatter.
The vote on the host nation was then decided by the former FIFA Executive Committee, but this shifted to a Congressional vote for the 2026 edition. Director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, Minky Worden, called on FIFA to delay its process for the 2034 edition.
“FIFA is failing in its responsibility to the world of football to conduct World Cup bidding and selection procedures in an ethical, transparent, objective, and unbiased way,” Worden said.
“If there’s to be any integrity in what remains of this process, FIFA needs to immediately delay and open the bidding process for the 2034 World Cup, make public its labour, human rights, and environment policies, and then make sure protections are fully carried out.”
She added that a potential World Cup in Saudi Arabia “exposes FIFA’s commitments to human rights as a sham”.
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