The Saudi Sports Minister defends his country’s right to host the 2034 World Cup

(CNN) – The Saudi Minister of Sports, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, defended his country’s right to host the 2034 FIFA Men’s World Cup, in an interview conducted with the BBC on Friday.

Speaking to BBC presenter Dan Roon in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdulaziz touched on a range of topics, including the controversy surrounding the 2034 bid, “sportswashing”, human rights, and the Saudi Professional League.

Saudi Arabia was the sole bidder to host the 2034 World Cup, having submitted its bid immediately after FIFA’s surprise call for expressions of interest from only Asia and Oceania on October 4, a move that sparked debate over transparency.

The Saudi Minister of Sports said: “When we saw that the opportunity was ripe, we submitted the file immediately because we were ready.”

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal continued, saying: “I do not think that there was any kind of lack of transparency on the part of FIFA. It may be that we were ready to submit the file and others were not. This is not our fault, I think.”

According to the Saudi Minister of Sports, the Kingdom is “studying the possibility” of hosting the tournament in the summer, despite the sharp rise in temperatures that Saudi Arabia witnesses at this time of the year.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal described the “sportswashing” allegations against his country as “very superficial” and pledged that there would be no “recurrence” of the controversy surrounding the treatment of foreign workers as we saw in Qatar.

After the Saudi bid was presented, the Sports and Rights Alliance, a global coalition of nine human rights and anti-corruption advocates in sports, urged FIFA to ensure human rights protection in the 2030 and 2034 World Cups.

The Saudi Sports Minister admitted that there is still “room for development” in terms of human rights, saying: “Any country has room for development. No one is perfect. We acknowledge that these forums help us make the necessary reforms to reach a better future for all.”

The Saudi Sports Minister defended the record transfer market witnessed by the Saudi Professional League this season, in which clubs spent an amount of approximately one billion US dollars in order to obtain the services of 94 players from the major European leagues.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal said: “I think the English Premier League did that and that’s how they started, and no one asked them when they did that. So, as I said, our focus is on developing the sport within the Kingdom, developing our league.”

In October, FIFA said it would “conduct comprehensive bidding and evaluation processes for the 2030 and 2034 editions of the FIFA World Cup, with the hosts to be determined through the FIFA Congress, which is expected to be held by the last quarter of 2024.”