Protecting Human Rights at the World Cup: Progress on Paper, Gaps on the Ground

When the World Cup comes around every four years, the world comes together to watch. The 2022 World Cup drew engagement from an estimated 5 billion people over the course of the tournament. The final match between France and Argentina became one of the most widely viewed sporting events in history, with almost 1.5 billion people tuning in. The 2026 edition is yet another colossal spectacle: 16 host cities across three countries, 48 teams, and 104 matches over 39 days.

Delivering a tournament of this size is a tremendous undertaking, requiring years of extensive planning, thousands of workers, and the movement of massive numbers of people both across and within borders. Considerations for the current World Cup, held in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, go back to 2016. Once the tournament kicks off, these efforts are quickly overshadowed by the roaring of the crowd as goals start hitting the back of the net.

However, while the play on the pitch is front of mind, behind-the-scenes concerns do not vanish. An event on this scale carries serious risk of human rights abuses: labor violations in the construction of stadiums and supporting infrastructure, discrimination, and threats to the security of participants and attendees, just to name a few.

With billions watching in the stadium and at home, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has the potential to set a new standard for how human rights are protected in international sporting events. That same visibility, however, means a failure to protect human rights looms large.

Q1: How does FIFA approach human rights?

A1: Before 2016, FIFA took on no direct responsibility for the human rights conditions surrounding its events, leaving their treatment to host governments alone. That position began to erode in 2014 when the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and business and human rights scholar John Ruggie wrote to FIFA, urging the organization to make a commitment to human rights and develop a strategy for integrating protections into its operations.

FIFA did not take immediate action. Within a year, however, a scandal compounded the pressure: An FBI investigation resulted in the indictment of nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives over what the U.S. Department of Justice called “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted” corruption. In addition, the labor conditions tied to preparations for the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and the 2018 World Cup in Russia, and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar had already begun to draw independent reporting and criticism. Facing scrutiny on so many fronts, FIFA changed its position.

FIFA first enshrined human rights in its governing documents in April 2016, committing to respect and promote human rights. The May 2017 FIFA Human Rights Policy defined this further, naming five focus areas (labor rights, land acquisition and housing rights, discrimination, security, and players’ rights) and a four-part approach (commit and embed, identify and address, protect and remedy, and engage and communicate).

The policy was initially operationalized in October 2017 during the bidding process for the 2026 World Cup. Bidding countries were required to commit to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, a set of international standards for the protection of human rights in business operations, and to present strategies for their implementation. Further, host cities had to present Human Rights Action Plans, laying out how governments would work with other stakeholders to protect human rights during World Cup preparation and execution. Importantly, while this policy came online in 2017, it did not apply to previous bids, meaning the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in Russia and Qatar were not bound by the policy.

While FIFA has stated that all 16 host cities for the 2026 tournament have submitted the required action plans, including consultation with local stakeholders, there is no uniform standard for publication and public availability. This lack of transparency on actual steps being taken to protect human rights, coupled with ongoing controversy surrounding the right to protest and free speech, travel restrictions, mass deportations, labor rights, and housing displacement, has resulted in a World Cup that still has significant room to grow in the protection of human rights.

Q2: Why does FIFA need a human rights policy?

A2: As noted above, until 2016, FIFA left human rights protections up to the host nation. While host countries are subject to international human rights law, with no World Cup–specific requirements for due diligence or protections, abuses abounded. During the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, beautification projects and rental housing resulted in the forced displacement of several thousand people from their homes. Ahead of Brazil 2014, as many as 170,000 people were evicted to clear space for World Cup and 2016 Olympic construction. Brazil’s tournament also coincided with nationwide protests against public spending on the World Cup, met by police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests.

Unfortunately, FIFA’s post-2016 record on human rights at World Cups does not reflect the promising improvements in policy. The 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia and the 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar were both marred by significant human rights abuses, with limited prevention efforts taken in advance and little done to respond when they occurred.

Russia’s hosting included significant labor abuses in the construction of stadiums and infrastructure: At least 21 workers died during construction, many as a result of insufficient health and safety conditions and monitoring. In the construction of the Zenit Arena in St. Petersburg, investigators found evidence of at least 110 workers from North Korea being subjected to forced labor, one of whom was found dead in a storage container. Russian authorities prevented migrant workers from speaking out about their conditions, including detaining a Human Rights Watch researcher attempting to interview them and denying them contact with a FIFA delegation with whom they wanted to raise wage concerns.

Qatar’s 2022 Cup faced similar challenges, beginning with the awarding of the tournament itself. FIFA’s selection of Qatar was controversial well before human rights entered the conversation: The country had never previously participated in a World Cup, had a climate wholly unsuited to a tournament played in its traditional June–July window, and the bid process itself was dogged by allegations of corruption and bribery. Layered on top of this was Qatar’s existing record of human rights violations, raising the question of why FIFA would award its flagship tournament to a country facing scrutiny on so many fronts simultaneously.

Qatar’s bid took steps beyond those of Russia and introduced a formal Human Rights Grievance Mechanism and a Human Rights Volunteers program to monitor issues at venues during matches. Unfortunately, these mechanisms did little to prevent, respond to, or expose the breadth of abuses that occurred.

Many of the issues that arose mirror long-running human rights concerns in Qatar. The kafala labor system, which prevents migrant workings from changing jobs or leaving the country without their employer’s permission, limits the agency of workers. Women’s rights were a persistent concern throughout both preparations and execution of the tournament. Qatar’s officially reported death toll tied to World Cup stadiums was 3 work-related and 37 non-work-related deaths, but independent estimates of deaths connected to World Cup preparations have run above 6,500.

The Women’s World Cup in France constitutes a distinct contrast. Despite the bid taking place in 2015, also before FIFA’s human rights policy took effect, it had a markedly better record on labor rights, women’s rights, and migrant worker protections. It was not blemish-free, however: Like previous Women’s World Cups, the gap between prize money for the women when compared with the men became a hot topic, prompting widespread conversation about gender-based discrimination in sport.

Q3: Why is FIFA taking action now?

A3: FIFA’s new approach to human rights protections, along with the increased attention paid to human rights considerations in this World Cup, is owed to a variety of factors and stakeholders. A long running civil society–led effort to bring attention to human rights concerns of previous such events, including World Cups, Olympics, and other international sporting events that reached a fever pitch in Qatar and Russia, has been vital in providing sustained focus and attention. The pressure provided by such an effort also requires hosts that are influenced by criticism on human rights or are concerned about the loss of international prestige or sponsor revenue that may come with such criticism.

The combination of 2018 and 2022 World Cups, alongside the 2024 Olympics in Paris and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi that engendered extraordinary human rights concerns, played a significant role in the newfound prominence of human rights considerations in World Cup planning. This came alongside a 2026 World Cup held in countries with comparatively robust transparency and accountability, human rights, and public procurement laws.

This pressure stemmed both from civil society and media campaigns that have been a part of most modern sporting events, but also from FIFA in its own processes. Put differently, the international community was able to see just how bad international sporting events can be for human rights before an event was held in places with both means and motivation for protecting human rights, leading to a greater appetite and avenue for change than has existed in the past. It is important that this momentum continues when planning future tournaments.

Q4: What does this mean for the future?

A4: Multiple factors came together to increase attention on human rights and to ultimately improve human rights due diligence in the 2026 World Cup. Keeping up momentum for human rights in future World Cups and other international sporting events will require the implication of a multitude of stakeholders and factors. Three factors in particular will play a major role in determining what the future holds for human rights at the World Cup and similar events.

First, how much attention is paid to human rights violations in preparation for bidding and hosting such events? Media and civil society will continue to shine a light on human rights concerns and violations. International attention and coverage will continue regardless of host countries. Such awareness-raising campaigns are a key element of human rights advocacy and see increasing attention around major international events. Barring a fundamental shift in the viability of international human rights advocacy, that is unlikely to change.

However, closing civic space internationally and a willingness to host international sporting events in authoritarian settings makes the participation of local civil society, those best equipped to understand and investigate local happenings, ever more difficult. Organizations doing invaluable research and reporting may be based internationally, but local partners are central to their work. Russia paints a chilling example, where Human Rights Watch saw a Russian researcher, Semyon Simonov, do vital work on human and labor rights violations in advance of the 2014 Sochi Olympics and the 2018 World Cup, only to find himself in legal peril for his efforts.

Second, will FIFA put real pressure on host countries to make and abide by commitments? Promisingly, FIFA has announced that commitments to human rights and a proposal with actionable steps to protect them will become a permanent part of the bidding process. This is laudable, but details and implementation will be key. Real commitment to improvements in human rights will require such agreements to be transparent and have methods of accountability that amount to real costs for failures. Ultimately, countries make a cost-benefit analysis when determining whether to host the World Cup or another international sporting event. This includes economic and focus costs as well as benefits such as potential tourism and other economic growth, international prestige, or increased international attention. Transparent and enforceable commitments, along with real costs for violations, are the only way for human rights to play a part of that calculus.

Early evidence on such commitments is scant but troubling. FIFA commissioned a report on the human rights violations surrounding Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup in 2016. This report, delivered to FIFA in 2023 but not published until 2024, noted the myriad ways in which workers were mistreated, resulting in death, injury, wage theft, and other maladies. It also concluded that workers who were entitled to remediation had not yet benefited from it, and that while the responsibility primarily fell with their employers and the Government of Qatar, it also fell on FIFA.

Despite this finding, the Qatar Legacy Fund, funded in part by the revenue of the 2022 World Cup, will be used for various international development projects in line with multilateral organizations, rather than to directly remediate laborers. This means that even though culpability and violations were established, real repercussions are limited.

Finally, how will host countries, who have ultimate authority over human rights protections, security forces, and the preparation for such events, respond to the above realities? Will they shrug off criticisms from civil society and the media, and brush off requirements from FIFA? Or will countries determine that protecting human rights in hosting these events is not only a moral imperative, but also a required part of the cost of hosting? Early evidence is limited, but does not inspire optimism.

The preparations for the 2026 World Cup brought local stakeholders into the process, creating greater accountability and transparency. This structure requires freedom of expression and an open civic space that is unlikely to repeat itself in more authoritarian states. In its early human rights due diligence efforts, FIFA has an opportunity to acknowledge this risk and provide support and attention to civil society organizations taking part in the planning process but has thus far declined to do so.

In accepting Saudi Arabia’s bid, FIFA declared the state’s human rights risk to be “medium,” despite its diverse and well documented history of prominent human rights violations and regular presence near the bottom of country rankings on human rights and freedom. Acknowledging the human rights risk is an initial and necessary step towards combating it. If the risks are not acknowledged, there is little hope that there will be meaningful efforts to protect against them.

Gretchen Scott is an intern with the Human Rights Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Andrew Friedman is director and senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS.