FIFA confirms Saudi Arabia as host of 2034 World Cup finals despite controversy

Zurich: The International Football Federation, FIFA on Wednesday decided the hosts for the two upcoming editions of its flagship men’s World Cup, controversially confirming Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 event while picking Spain, Portugal and Morocco as joint hosts for the 2030 tournament.

FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia as the host of the 2034 World Cup despite concerns raised by many organisations over the country’s alleged history of human rights violations. The hosts for both World Cups were confirmed at Wednesday’s Extraordinary FIFA Congress meeting following a vote. All 211 of Fifa’s member nations were represented at the meeting over a video link.

Three matches in the 2030 tournament will be held in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to mark 100 years of the competition. The opening match of that event will be played in Uruguay, which hosted the inaugural 1930 finals, with the next two games to be staged in Argentina and Paraguay respectively before the rest of the tournament is played in the three main co-host countries.

The hosts for both tournaments and the 2030 centenary celebrations, were conducted via two separate votes. The first confirmed Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina as the centenary hosts.

The Extraordinary FIFA Congress then confirmed the three hosts for 2030, while Saudi Arabia was awarded the 2034 tournament. Saudi Arabia was the sole bidder for the tournament finals to be played in 10 years. The Middle-East nation, as well as the host for the 2030 edition, got the nod with an online FIFA Congress voting by acclamation in favour of their staging.

Saudi Arabia was the only interested party in the voting as the agreement for South America to stage the opening games in 2030 – reached in October last year – paved the way for them to get the 2034 finals.

Saudi Arabia confirmed their interest in hosting on the same day the 2030 agreement was made public, with FIFA limiting further expressions of interest to nations from the Asian and Oceania confederations and setting a deadline of less than a month to declare that interest.

With FIFA showing its interest in getting Saudi Arabia to host the event, many of its members have expressed disappointment over the decision because of the controversy over alleged violation of human rights by the regime.

The Norwegian football federation announced on Tuesday it would abstain from any vote by acclamation, and said the process FIFA had followed to determine the 2030 and 2034 hosts was “flawed”.

Human rights organisation Amnesty International said last week there had been a “deafening silence” from national governing bodies over Saudi’s hosting, compared to how many spoke out regarding Qatar’s staging of the 2022 finals.

The European countries too were opposed to Saudi Arabia hosting the World Cup in 2034 because of their plans to organise the event in winter. Any efforts to stage the 2034 finals in winter to avoid searing daytime temperatures in the summer are set to be opposed by Europe’s domestic leagues, who are already involved in a legal action against FIFA.

So, the battle for 2034 has not ended with FIFA picking Saudi Arabia, it will continue for the next few years both in the courts and on international forums.