Last week’s confirmation that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup was met with a strangely muted reaction throughout the footballing world – and at the Fifa Congress itself, which took the form of an extended Zoom call. Mostly this was because the announcement itself was a foregone conclusion; with no other countries bidding to host the 2034 tournament, and the vote in favor of the 2030 hosts effectively dependent on simultaneous approval of the Saudis’ 2034 bid, there was little of the fanfare that usually accompanies Fifa’s biggest proclamations, and none of the shock that accompanied the revelation of past World Cup bid winners like Qatar. The debate about the Saudis’ suitability as a World Cup host was lost well before last week’s Fifa Congress; the country’s appalling human rights record and odious history of internal oppression are no secret to Fifa, but football’s peak body brushed all that aside and went ahead with last week’s formalities regardless.
If the spectacle of Fifa member states raising their hands to applaud over Zoom in support of the Saudis’ 2034 bid felt like a strange way to seal the petro-monarchy’s footballing coronation, however, it’s perhaps because a vague sense has started to come into focus that all is not well with the Saudi sporting project. This is not to suggest that the Saudis will not succeed in holding the 2034 World Cup; the tournament is the showpiece event in crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s long-term initiative to wean the Saudi economy off oil and turn his country into a hub of the global leisure economy, so no expense will be spared in ensuring it is a success.
