– Shockingly bad, says Frank Conde Tangberg in a statement.
Tangberg is a political advisor at Amnesty International Norway. Amnesty and ten other organisations, including trade unions and supporter groups, are not generous in their description of the “independent human rights context assessment” produced by law firm AS&H Clifford Chance.
The assessment has been made with a view to the World Cup in 2034, where Saudi Arabia is the only bidder.
– It is artificially limited and therefore does not contribute to giving Fifa the description of reality they need before they have to assess whether Saudi Arabia can host the World Cup and at the same time fulfill Fifa’s binding requirements to safeguard human rights. It has blithely ignored the dramatic suppression of freedom of expression, bans on trade unions, discrimination against queers and forced evictions, says Tangberg.
Not impressed
AS&H Clifford Chance is one of the world’s largest law firms and is based in, among other places, Saudi Arabia. Several of the clients there have been Saudi authorities.
Tangberg is not impressed with the work that has been done.
– We cannot see that AS&H Clifford Chance has consulted external experts, such as international human rights organisations, trade unions or Saudi Arabian human rights experts. This would be fundamental to forming a picture of the realities on the ground in Saudi Arabia, he says.
– At the same time, it is an open question about how to do it in a country without freedom of expression, where a tweet can result in the death penalty. One can only imagine the consequences of presenting an open criticism of the World Cup bid, if one consulted someone in Saudi Arabia, says Tangberg.
NTB has sent a number of questions to AS&H Clifford Chance without receiving an answer.
– Thorough bidding processes
Fifa has not responded directly to the questions the football association has received from NTB. Among other things, it has been asked how Fifa ensures that such context assessments take into account all relevant aspects of human rights.
“Fifa is implementing thorough bidding processes for the World Cup in football in 2030 and 2034, in line with previous processes for the selection of host countries for the Women’s World Cup in 2023, the World Cup in 2026 and the Women’s World Cup in 2027,” writes a Fifa spokesperson in an email to NTB .
“The bid evaluation reports for the WC 2030 and 2034 will be published before the extraordinary Fifa Congress meeting on 11 December 2024,” states Fifa.
Saudi Arabia will then be awarded the championship in 2034 as the sole applicant.