Editor's note: Daniela Heerdt is a PhD
candidate at Tilburg Law School in the Netherlands. Her PhD research deals with
the establishment of responsibility and accountability for adverse human rights
impacts of mega-sporting events, with a focus on FIFA World Cups and Olympic
Games.
About three years ago, the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA) adopted a new version of its Statutes,
including a statutory commitment to respect internationally recognized human
rights. Since then, FIFA undertook a human rights journey that has been praised
by various stakeholders in the sports and human rights field. In early June, the
FIFA Congress is scheduled to take a decision that could potentially undo all
positive efforts taken thus far.
FIFA already decided in January 2017 to increase the
number of teams participating in the 2026 World Cup from 32 to 48. Shortly
after, discussions began on the possibility to also expand the number of teams for
the 2022 World Cup hosted in Qatar. Subsequently, FIFA conducted a feasibility
study, which revealed that the expansion would be feasible but require a
number of matches to be hosted in neighbouring countries, explicitly mentioning
Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). One
does not have to be a human rights expert to be highly alarmed by this list of
potential co-hosting countries. Nevertheless, the FIFA Council approved of the
possibility to expand in March 2019, paving the way for the FIFA Congress to
take a decision on the matter. Obviously, the advancement of the expansion
decision raises serious doubts over the sincerity of FIFA’s reforms and human
rights commitments.
The Human Rights Climate in Potential Co-hosts
The list of human rights issues commonly linked to the potential
co-hosts is long.[i]
All of them uphold severe restrictions on the freedom of expression and
regularly silence activists. Women face discrimination under the law of a
number of these countries, and the rights of migrant workers are not adequately
protected, leading to abusive situations and forced labour.[ii]
Arbitrary arrests and unfair trials and sentencing are widespread in Oman.[iii]
Bahrain has a
habit of detaining, torturing and deporting human rights defenders and Kuwait refuses to
recognize the 100,000 Bidun living in the country as Kuwaiti citizens, leaving
them stateless. The latest add-on to Saudi Arabia’s appalling
human rights track record is the mass
execution of 37 individuals, which proceeded against vociferous criticism
from other states and human rights organizations about the lack of due process
and allegations of torture having been used to obtain confessions of those
convicted and executed. Furthermore, even the highest football official cannot
have missed the allegations on Saudi officials being involved in the murder
of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Turkey in
October 2018. Finally, the active involvement of and alleged attacks on
civilians launched by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in
the Yemen war can also not be ignored.
In addition to these structural human rights issues spread in the
region, a number of these countries have been involved in very recent
football-related human rights cases. In January 2019, a
British football fan, Ali Ahmad, has been detained for three weeks and
suffered torture by UAE security officials for wearing a Qatari football jersey
to an Asian Cup match between Qatar and Iraq. In February 2019, Hakeem
al-Araibi, a football player from Bahrain, now living as refugee in
Australia, has been released from Thai prison after his arrest in November
2018. The Thai authorities acted upon an arrest warrant issued by Bahrain, where
Hakeem had been convicted in absentia
to 10 years in prison for an incident dating back to November 2012. The
official allegations were vandalism of a police station, but there is clear
evidence that discharges Hakeem of these allegations. Most likely, he became a
target of Bahraini government and football officials that identified and
persecuted Bahraini football players that were involved in anti-government
protests during the Arab Spring in 2012.
The Mismatch with FIFA’s Standing Human Rights Commitments
This brief overview presents just a fraction of the extremely
negative human rights track record of the countries that FIFA is considering as
potential co-hosts for the 2022 World Cup. In case one of these countries will indeed
host a World Cup match, FIFA risks to throw away all efforts that it carefully
put into building up its human rights profile in the past three years. After
the inclusion of human rights into its Statutes, FIFA created a Human
Rights Advisory Board in March 2017, adopted a human
rights policy in May 2017, and launched a complaint
mechanism for human rights defenders and media representatives in the
run-up to the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Most importantly, in October 2017 FIFA integrated human rights
requirements in its bidding
requirements for the World Cup following
John Ruggie’s recommendation to “set explicit human rights
requirements of Local Organising Committees in bidding documents for
tournaments and provide guidance on them”.[iv]
The revised bidding requirements expect bidders to conduct all bidding and
hosting activities in line with internationally recognized human rights.[v]
Furthermore, bidders are required to submit a public commitment to respect
human rights and a human rights strategy, together with a report on stakeholder
engagement in developing the policy.[vi]
The new requirements applied for the first time to the
bidding process for the 2026 World Cup and while the 2022 World
Cup had been awarded before, the new standard forms an integral part of FIFA’s
human rights system by now and therefore should be considered in the recent
expansion plans.
Interestingly, the feasibility
study on the expansion of the 2022 World Cup mentions human rights at
several points: in the context of requirements regarding stadiums (p. 32 &
46), as part of requirements for additional infrastructure and sites (p. 46),
and as one of the necessary government guarantees to be submitted to FIFA
(p.68). Receiving such guarantees from the respective government might not pose
a problem. Instead, the real issue at stake is whether FIFA truly cares about
its human rights commitments when considering if these guarantees turn out to
be nothing but empty words on a piece of paper? FIFA risks failing its
commitments by letting any of the proposed countries co-host the World Cup
without having done a proper human rights risk assessment.
Despite this risk, the expansion seems to be more likely to happen
than not. FIFA President Gianni Infantino appears to be convinced that the
expansion can contribute to solving the diplomatic crisis
that is ongoing in the region and stated
on record that a preliminary survey showed that 90% of the member
associations are in favour of the expansion. Indeed, the decision lies in their
hands. They make up the members of the FIFA Congress, FIFA’s supreme body for
decision-making, and each member association has one vote. While a number of
associations and confederations already publicly announced their
support of the expansion, there is still hope that other member
associations or confederations remind FIFA of its human rights responsibilities
and commitments by voting against it.
[i] For an overview of human rights issues linked to these countries,
see Human Rights Watch (2019), “World Report 2018”.
[ii] See for example
Human Rights Committee CCPR/C/BHR/CO/1 (2018), “Concluding observations on the
initial report of Bahrain”.
[iii] Human Rights Council A/HRC/29/25/Add.1 (2015), “Report of the
Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of
association, Maina Kiai – Mission to Oman”, para 20 ff.
[iv] John G. Ruggie (2017), “’For the Game. For the World’ FIFA &
Human Rights”, p. 32.
[v] FIFA (2017), “FIFA REGULATIONS for the selection of the venue for
the final competition of the 2026 FIFA World Cup™”, Regulation 8.1 (ii).
[vi] Ibid., Regulation 8.2.