December 9 – The English Football Association is still reportedly weighing up whether it will officially endorse Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid at this week’s virtual FIFA Congress amid ongoing human rights concerns.
After Germany controversially gave the Saudis its backing, the English FA has yet to decide whether it will back Saudi Arabia’s bid as the sole candidate, according to the BBC.
Saudi Arabia’s status as hosts has proven to be hugely controversial given the country’s human rights record, all the more so after FIFA last week released their evaluation report for the bid, giving Saudi Arabia an average score of 4.2 out of 5, which was the highest ever awarded.
This was despite the report concluding the tournament posed a ‘medium’ human rights risk, leading to outrage from activists.
A traditional vote among FIFA’s 200-plus members would usually take place but Saudi Arabia’s bid is expected to be ratified by acclamation, where federations are asked to show their support by simply applauding.
The English FA’s problem is that it could be accused of hypocrisy if it refuses to endorse the Saudis but still sends an England team to compete. The other issue is that the ratification process for the 2030 and 2034 World Cups has been combined into one by FIFA, meaning the hosts for both tournaments will be decided together.
That means technically that if the English FA opposed the Saudi proposal, they would seemingly have to also go against the 2030 bid from Spain, Morocco and Portugal as co-hosts, with early matches also being played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.
Meanwhile, DFB president Bernd Neuendorf explained why Germany was not opposing the Saudi bid.
“We did not make the decision lightly and carefully examined the application for the 2034 World Cup,” he said.
“There was an exchange with many interest groups and experts, including human rights organisations and fans, on the basis of which a well-founded decision was made.
“We take the criticism of the applicant country seriously and will continue to engage in dialogue. Our goal is to work together with FIFA to improve the situation in the coming years.”
Neuendorf said Germany “would have taken ourselves out of the game” had the DFB not voted in favour.
“We must work with FIFA to improve the situation in Saudi Arabia in terms of human rights and sustainability,” he said, describing the human rights situation in the kingdom as “critical” and “not something we gloss over.”
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