It was a foregone conclusion, due to the various renunciations ratified and the barely concealed aspirations of Fifa: the Football World Cup in 2030 will be played both in Europe and in Africa, on Spanish, Portuguese and Moroccan soil; then in Saudi Arabia in 2034. Two files validated this Wednesday by the Fifa congress and the 211 member federations via a virtual vote.
In 2030, for the Centennial World Cup, a trip to South America – in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay – will also be observed at the start of the competition. This dispersed edition will be no less historic since the World Cup will be played on the African continent for only the second time after South Africa in 2010.
Four years later, the return will be made to Asia, only 12 years after the 2022 World Cup which was organized by Qatar. A seamless scenario that Fifa wrote without worrying about the many opposing voices. The designated Saudi Arabia was able to benefit from Chinese and Australian defections in particular. This choice probably announces a postponement of the competition to the end of the year – as in 2022 – given the extreme temperatures of the Middle Eastern summer.
A World Cup “tarnished by repression, discrimination and exploitation”
In the wake of this latest formalization, several NGOs and associations such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International expressed their indignation through a common text, denouncing the “ human rights violations » observed in Saudi Arabia. “ Today, there is no shortage of evidence: migrant workers exploited and victims of racism, activists sentenced to decades in prison for expressing themselves peacefully, women and LGBTQIA+ people facing legalized discrimination, or even residents expelled force to make way for state projects. »
This attribution of the 2034 World Cup “ endangers lives and reveals the emptiness of FIFA’s human rights commitmentscontinue the organizations mentioned.
It is clear that without urgent action and comprehensive reforms, the 2034 World Cup will be tarnished by large-scale repression, discrimination and exploitation. »
