JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It's official. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be hosting the 2034 World Cup. FIFA, the sport's governing body, made the announcement earlier today in Zurich. The news, while a welcome to government officials in Saudi Arabia, has stirred backlash amongst critics who point to the country's questionable human rights record. So how did Saudi Arabia go about winning this bid, and what does it tell us about the country's bigger strategy when it comes to sports investments? For help understanding all of this, let's talk with Jacob Whitehead, who's been covering this story for The Athletic. Hey there.
JACOB WHITEHEAD: Hey. How's it going?
SUMMERS: It's going well. Jacob, I want to start by asking you this. we've really been seeing Saudi Arabia dive into investing in sports. Their Public Investment Fund bought Newcastle United, which, of course, is one of England's biggest teams. They've brought some of the best soccer players in the world, like Cristiano Ronaldo, to play in their domestic league. Why is it that this country is putting just so much money into sports?
WHITEHEAD: Depends who you ask - on the one hand, if you listen to Saudi government literature, it's part of a drive to sort of involve Saudi Arabia's massively growing young population to improve obesity stats, to improve tourism in the country. For others, they will say it's a form of sports washing - it's effectively using sport to hide Saudi Arabia's various human rights abuses.
And the thing is it's not just football. I mean, obviously, Newcastle was the first time that we really saw this prominently. But we've also seen it in golf with the LIV Golf tour, which is trying to compete with the PGA and may even now be doing a deal so that Saudi will have a - compete effectively at golf's top table, and also into boxing. So it's widespread. We reported in The Athletic a few months ago that Saudi Arabia are hoping to host 30 world championships by project 2030, regardless of sport. That just gives you some idea of just how wide-ranging their interests are as they pursue their foreign policy goals.
SUMMERS: And we should just be clear here that Saudi Arabia has been accused of widespread human rights violations, including the treatment of migrant workers and women and LGBTQ people. What are people in the sport saying about this?
WHITEHEAD: It's interesting. Some people will only talk about the sport itself. So for example, some say it's a football competition. Some say human rights shouldn't come into it. Others say that hosting the tournament will shine a light - insert quotation marks - on these abuses and actually improve matters. Now, whether there's actually been any evidence that has ever happened based on previous autocratic regimes is another matter entirely.
FIFA ask every bidding nation to produce a human rights handbook, which Saudi Arabia did. That was widely criticized by 11 different human rights organizations who said that it ignored certain parts of human rights, that it selectively quoted. But yet, FIFA still gave this the highest score of any bids in FIFA history. I think they gave it 4.2 out of 5, and they only rated it as a medium human rights risk. So people are talking about it. How seriously governing bodies are taking it is another matter entirely.
SUMMERS: This is not the first time that FIFA has been in some controversy over the country that it's picked to host the World Cup. You, of course, will recall countries like Russia and Qatar hosting in the past. What does picking Saudi Arabia do for the organization's credibility?
WHITEHEAD: It will make observers question FIFA's processes. FIFA will say, well, Saudi Arabia will give us the most money. Now, it's a simplistic view to say that this means FIFA are greedy. FIFA are trying to earn money for all of their over 200 federations, which they represent to try and develop football as much as they can in those nations. However, I suppose the issue is that if that money is being made at the expense of human rights and when the hosting of the World Cup will sort of actively help these autocratic regimes' effectively soft power goals, whether that's a role which football should be playing.
SUMMERS: That's Jacob Whitehead, reporter for The Athletic. Jacob, thank you.
WHITEHEAD: Cheers. Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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