A group of leading legal figures say Fifa has ignored their report into human rights concerns over the 2034 World Cup, warning that the governing body is “dealing with the devil” in planning to take the tournament to Saudi Arabia.
A decision on the Saudi bid to host the World Cup is to be made in December, although it appears to be a foregone conclusion given there are no other bidders. The lawyers – Prof Mark Pieth, Stefan Wehrenberg and Rodney Dixon KC – submitted a report to Fifa in May pointing out areas in which the Saudi state breached the human rights policies of world football’s governing body.
Pieth said that going to Saudi Arabia was a “big risk” for Fifa. “My understanding is that Saudi Arabia is quite a bit nervous [about public criticism] and they are dangerous,” he said. “That’s my take. I’m not shy to say it in public. People are really dealing with the devil here. So there is a big risk.”
They didn’t give a shit about Qatar, so why care about Saudi Arabia?
you can’t compare the human right records of these. Qatar does not execute its protestors and activists. Saudis are also dirt poor next to any Qatari. Again, this worldcup money is directly from the pockets of these poor oppressed citizens. You cannot find any Qatari who is poor. To give you few statistics about how poor actual Saudi citizens are: 70% of citizens rely on government assistance programs which offer very little and have strict conditions that are not easy to meet in first place, 80% don’t own a house, even their doctors and engineers get a salary of $1500 in the private sector, +high unemployment among college graduates, +many have no income at all and cannot qualify for those programs, many are travelled banned because they took loans from banks, +secret court trials without lawyers, life sentences for anyone who tweets anything anti-gov, torture, exexutions… All these things I mentioned randomly don’t even exist in Qatar