FIFA’s insulting handling of the issue of remedy for migrant workers who suffered in relation to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and its deeply flawed evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid, provides yet more evidence for why FIFA is not fit for purpose to deliver on its responsibilities to govern football, FairSquare said today.
FairSquare co-director James Lynch said:
“FIFA has plumbed new depths this week. Its $50 million Qatar 2022 ‘legacy fund’ offers nothing for the workers who suffered building the tournament, completely ignoring the advice of its own expert human rights report.”
“Meanwhile, flying in the face of all credible assessments, FIFA’s World Cup 2034 bid ‘evaluation’ gives Saudi Arabia a free pass on human rights. Its determination to use a deeply flawed process to hand Saudi Arabia the tournament, ignoring extensive and widespread human rights risks, provides further evidence that it is simply unsuited to providing proper governance of the global game.”
Qatar 2022
Alongside other human rights and labour organisations, FairSquare campaigned for a remedy fund to be set up by FIFA to compensate migrant workers and their families for abuses while preparing and delivering the 2022 World Cup. In 2023, responding to a request from the Norwegian FA, FIFA commissioned the human rights consultancy Human Level to provide recommendations on remedy for workers in relation to 2022.
Human Level’s report was delivered to FIFA in December 2023 but was not published until this morning, nearly a year later. The key conclusion of the report, endorsed by FIFA’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and Social Responsibility, is that FIFA has a “responsibility to take additional measures to contribute to the provision of remedy” to workers who contributed to World Cup 2022 and “who have not yet benefitted from any, or any adequate remediation”. The FIFA Subcommittee recommended that FIFA ensure that its World Cup 2022 Legacy Fund was informed by Human Level’s detailed recommendations on remedy for migrant workers.
However, hours before FIFA finally published the report, it launched the $50m 2022 World Cup Legacy Fund, which contained no mention of the Human Level report, and did not give any indication that FIFA plans to use the fund to remedy migrant workers.
Saudi 2034
FIFA’s evaluation of the Saudi 2034 bid states that the tournament is “medium risk” for human rights, and the World Cup could “contribute to positive human rights outcomes for people in Saudi Arabia and the region”. This contrasts with a June 2024 Amnesty International study, completed with assistance from FairSquare, that found that “Saudi Arabia has an appalling human rights record and its bid carries a broad range of very serious risks.”
The evaluation bid also ignores calls by human and labour rights organisations to halt the bidding process for 2034.
FIFA’s evaluation leans heavily on the deeply flawed “independent human rights context assessment” produced by AS&H Clifford Chance, which sits within Clifford Chance’s integrated global partnership, that contains no substantive discussion of extensive and relevant abuses in Saudi Arabia, and which – with FIFA’s agreement – excludes analysis of Saudi Arabia’s record on multiple critical human rights.
FIFA unfit to govern football
In October, FairSquare published Substitute, a major report identifying serious structural flaws within FIFA that have resulted in the organisation contributing to a wide range of social harms, not least very serious and systematic human rights abuses, and that preclude it from fulfilling one of its core stated objectives of developing the game.
The report argues that FIFA is not capable of self-regulation and that in the absence of external reform it will continue to cause or exacerbate human rights abuses and other social harms.
