Aussies 'warned' not to bid on 2034 World Cup

The football world has been left amiss after reports Australia was warned not to bid on the 2034 World Cup.

Hours after Australia's football federation announced that it would not be in the running to host the the 2034 version of the tournament — leaving Saudi Arabia as the lone remaining candidate – the FIFA president posted to Instagram to announce the oil rich Middle Eastern nation will host the 2034 World Cup on Wednesday morning.

FIFA had set October 31 as the deadline for its member federations in Asia and Oceania to formally declare interest in hosting the tournament, and it later confirmed that only Saudi Arabia was in.

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Australia's decision not to enter the race to host the tournament, virtually handing the rights to Saudi Arabia, has left many human rights activists concerned.

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To compound their concern, it's understood Australia was strongly advised not to throw their hat in the ring, with The Guardian reporting that Australian football officials "had been issued indirect warnings by some of football's most powerful administrators not to bid."

Yahoo also reported that it was Infantino who tried to "dissuade" Australia and Indonesia from bidding, saying all AFC nations should get behind one bid.

BBC sports editor Dan Roan wrote in a column: "The fact that Australia has now decided not to bid will also raise concerns that they knew taking on the Saudis would have been futile.

"Whatever the true motive of Saudi Arabia's rulers, its emergence as the one bidder for 2034 will intensify scrutiny on Fifa's processes and judgement, with some observers voicing concerns that this outcome had almost been engineered as an effective fait accompli in a deal lacking transparency and accountability.

"The way that this process has seemed to pave the way for the Saudis will leave many uneasy."

Snaring the World Cup would be the culmination of Saudi Arabia's ambitious drive to become a major player in global sports, having already spent massive amounts on bringing in dozens of star football players to its domestic league, buying English club Newcastle, launching the breakaway LIV Golf tour and hosting major boxing fights.

But FIFA's seeming eagerness to pave the way for Saudi Arabia to host its marquee event has drawn widespread criticism from activists who say it exposes the governing body's human rights commitments as "a sham."

Saudi Arabia's sports spending program approved by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been described as sportswashing to soften a national image often associated with its record on women's rights and the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has built close ties to Saudi football and the crown prince personally, and he has long been seen as trying to steer the world football body's competitions toward the kingdom.

When FIFA made a deal this month to have just one host bid for the 2030 World Cup — uniting Spain, Portugal and Morocco with three games placed in South America — it also fast-tracked the 2034 hosting race with only member federations in Asia and Oceania eligible to bid.

The tight deadline gave them less than four weeks to enter the race by Tuesday and just one month more to sign a bidding agreement with government support for staging 104 games over nearly six weeks.

The timetable "was a little bit of a surprise," Australian football federation CEO James Johnson acknowledged, adding "we're adults and we just try to roll with it and deal with the cards that we have been given."

Australia will instead attempt to secure hosting the 2029 Club World Cup — which will relaunch in 2025 playing every four years in a new format with 32 teams qualifying — and the 2026 Women's Asian Cup. Saudi Arabia also is bidding for the women's Asian championship.

"I think there will be some goodwill created by not going for 2034," Johnson told reporters in an online call, accepting that the resources of a government-backed Saudi bid "is difficult to compete with."

Australia and New Zealand successfully co-hosted the Women's World Cup in July and August. Brisbane is due to become the third Australian city to host the Olympics when it stages the 2032 Summer Games.

Saudi Arabia also will host the men's Asian Cup in 2027 and has started a widespread construction program to build and renovate stadiums that likely will be used for the World Cup. FIFA's bidding documents say 14 stadiums are needed at the 48-team tournament.

Qatar's World Cup was dogged by years-long allegations of rights abuses of migrant workers needed to build its stadiums.

"FIFA's failure in 2010 to insist on human rights protections when it awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar is a major reason why serious reforms were so delayed, and so often weakly implemented and enforced," Football Supporters Europe executive director Ronan Evain said Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia's preparation should face some of the same scrutiny in the next decade.

"With Saudi Arabia's estimated 13.4 million migrant workers, inadequate labor and heat protections and no unions, no independent human rights monitors, and no press freedom, there is every reason to fear for the lives of those who would build and service stadiums, transit, hotels, and other hosting infrastructure in Saudi Arabia," Human Rights Watch director of global initiatives Minky Worden said in a recent statement.

"The possibility that FIFA could award Saudi Arabia the 2034 World Cup despite its appalling human rights record and closed door to any monitoring exposes FIFA's commitments to human rights as a sham," Worden said.

FIFA's own World Cup bidding documents push potential hosts toward "respecting internationally recognised human rights," though limits the remit to tournament operations rather than in wider society.

"FIFA must now make clear how it expects hosts to comply with its human rights policies," Amnesty International official Steve Cockburn said in a statement Tuesday. "It must also be prepared to halt the bidding process if serious human rights risks are not credibly addressed."