FIFA Ethics and Regulations Watch (FERW) unequivocally condemns the ongoing and preventable deaths of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, as exposed by Human Rights Watch’s latest findings. We call on the global football community, sponsors, and fans to boycott the FIFA 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia unless immediate, concrete action is taken to protect workers’ rights and lives.
HRW Findings: Gruesome, Avoidable Deaths and Systemic Negligence
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented scores of migrant workers dying in Saudi Arabia from horrific and avoidable workplace accidents, including falls from buildings, electrocution, and even decapitation, particularly as construction intensifies for the 2034 World Cup and other mega-projects. HRW’s research, based on interviews with families of 31 deceased workers from Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, as well as official records, reveals a pattern of gross negligence:
- Widespread Misclassification: Up to 80% of migrant worker deaths are misreported as “natural causes,” denying families compensation and masking the true scale of workplace fatalities.
- Lack of Investigation and Compensation: Even when deaths are clearly work-related, Saudi authorities and employers often fail to investigate or provide compensation, in violation of both Saudi law and international labor standards.
- Opaque and Burdensome Processes: The process for families to obtain any compensation is long, burdensome, and frequently unsuccessful.
- Sectoral Risk: The construction sector is especially dangerous, with the top causes of injury and death being falls, inanimate mechanical forces, and traffic accidents-all disproportionately affecting migrant workers.
- Failure of Oversight: Saudi authorities have failed to enforce basic health and safety protections, conduct autopsies, or ensure transparency in workplace deaths.
Human Rights and Labor Groups Sound the Alarm
Leading human rights and labor organizations have issued urgent warnings:
“The gruesome workplace accidents killing migrant workers in Saudi Arabia should be a huge red flag for businesses, football fans, and sports associations seeking to partner with FIFA on the 2034 Men’s World Cup and other Saudi ‘giga-projects’.” –
Michael Page, Deputy Middle East Director, Human Rights Watch
“Hundreds of thousands of young men… are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives, a medical system that doesn’t have the capacity to determine the cause of their deaths, and a political system that doesn’t appear to either protect them or find out how they died, let alone compensate the families shattered by Saudi Arabia’s negligence.”
James Lynch, Co-director, FairSquare
“The 2034 World Cup may be the most expensive, but could also come at the highest cost in human lives as millions of workers build, including 11 new stadiums, a rail transit network and 70,000 hotel rooms.”
Minky Worden, Human Rights Watch
FIFA’s Complicity and Failure to Act
Despite these grave warnings, FIFA has awarded the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia without demanding robust human rights guarantees or effective worker protections. FIFA’s vague promises of future “workers’ welfare systems” lack detail, transparency, and urgency. The organization has failed to learn from the human rights disaster of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, where similar abuses were rampant.
Key Statistics
- Migrant worker deaths misclassified as “natural causes”:
- 74% of 1,420 Indian deaths (2023, Riyadh embassy)
- 80% of 887 Bangladeshi deaths (first half of 2024)
- 68% of 870 Nepali deaths (2019–2022)
- First reported World Cup-related death: March 2025, Pakistani worker fell from a stadium site in Al Khobar.
- Documented causes: Falls, electrocution, decapitation, heat-related illness, and machinery accidents.
FERW’s Demands
FERW demands the following before any further progress on the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia:
- Immediate halt to all World Cup-related construction until independent, transparent investigations into all migrant worker deaths are completed.
- Mandatory compensation for families of all deceased workers, regardless of cause, and retroactive compensation for past misclassified cases.
- Full transparency and public reporting of all workplace injuries and deaths.
- Independent oversight by international labor and human rights organizations.
- Binding guarantees from FIFA and Saudi authorities for worker safety and rights, including the right to organize and access to justice.
Boycott FIFA Saudi 2034
FERW calls on national football associations, sponsors, broadcasters, and fans to boycott the FIFA 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia unless these demands are met. The world cannot celebrate football while thousands of workers pay with their lives for preventable, profit-driven negligence.
No World Cup is worth the price of human lives. FIFA and Saudi Arabia must be held accountable-now.
