Fifa has rejected calls for an independent monitor to assess migrant workers’ conditions in Saudi Arabia in the buildup to the 2034 World Cup. Football’s world governing body has been urged by the African Regional Organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa), a trade union organisation that represents 18 million African workers, to increase protections afforded to migrant workers as the Gulf state embarks on the massive construction programme required to deliver the tournament. In response, however, Fifa has argued measures currently in place are sufficient, claiming it mandates hosts to “uphold their respective duties and responsibilities under international human rights standards in all activities associated with the tournament”.
ITUC–Africa made the request to Fifa last month in response to what it described as Saudi Arabia’s “alarming record” on human rights and Fifa’s verdict on the same issue in assessing the Saudi bid. It called on Fifa to make a number of specific interventions, including the end of the kafala system of labour and allowing independent monitors to keep watch over workers’ conditions.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, Fifa’s general secretary, Mattias Grafström, replied to ITUC-Africa but does not engage directly with its requests. Instead he points to commitments already made by the Saudi authorities in their bid literature, including a proposal to establish, in Grafström’s words, “a workers’ welfare system to monitor compliance with labour rights standards for tournament-related workers”.
