In the early hours of Saturday 30 November, Fifa released a glowing evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s bid to host the 2034 World Cup, giving it the joint-highest score of any bidding nation and declaring it carried only a “medium” human rights risk.
At the same time, it slipped out a long-awaited report on whether it should compensate migrant workers who suffered severe labour abuses on projects linked to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Despite a recommendation from its own subcommittee on human rights and social responsibility that it do so, Fifa’s answer was, in effect, a resounding no.
