REVEALED: Saudi 2034 death data wrong, and how Qatar pioneered a liar's playbook
When ITV's revelatory documentary last week showed Saudi Arabia is abusing human rights ahead of the 2034 World Cup, we knew we'd seen this depressing film before.
More than 21,000 migrant workers from India, Bangladesh and Nepal have died in Saudi Arabia since the launch of that nation’s Vision 2030 project eight years ago; and Vision 2030 now includes staging the 2034 World Cup.
That at least is according to the ITV documentary "Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia" which aired on British TV last week. That death figure is misleading, by the way, more of which shortly.
The 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia and other “Vision 2030” projects will be built at the cost of thousands of migrants workers’ lives, or more likely tens of thousands of lives.
Many of those who will perish, or already have, will have worked in dire conditions in contravention of international labour laws and human rights.
Their bodies will be shipped home to India, Bangladesh, Nepal and multiple other impoverished destinations with no fanfare, and, typically, no compensation, and certainly no regrets from the Saudi government.
This will happen continuously over the next 9-10 years and we will have no way of reliably documenting it. Why?
The Saudi government could not give a toss at the bloodshed of cheap and disposable labour as long as the vision of Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS - a man comfortable with loads of blood on his hands and and loads more - is realised.
MBS’s vision is a vision of a modern, progressive, globally influential Saudi Arabia, but with plenty of death for those who don’t see things his way.
Vision 2030 comprises numerous mega projects, including NEOM, a futuristic region of 10,200 square miles in Saudi’s Tabuk Province, where the showpiece will be a “linear city” called The Line (below), which will be housed in a trench that is 110 miles long, 500 metres high and 200 metres wide.
Last month, Saudi Arabia said an initial three-mile stretch of that city will be completed by 2030 and the whole thing will be done by 2045.
One of the stadiums Saudi Arabia has said will host matches at the 2034 World Cup will be located within The Line (artist’s impression below).
If you think all this is absolutely bonkers (and it is), then you ain’t seen nothing yet. There are around 140,000 mostly migrant workers already working on The Line, at the largest construction site in the world.
Last week’s ITV documentary showed covertly-filmed footage of woeful conditions for migrant workers, protests by some of them, devastated relatives of others who have already died, and interviews with multiple human rights advocates and Saudi dissidents persecuted for wanting various freedoms. The Saudi government said the reports are “misinformation”.
We have seen this film before.
Qatar won the right to hold the 2022 World Cup in opaque fashion thanks to the most corrupt FIFA ExCo in history. Saudi Arabia’s “winning bid” is even more opaque.
Qatar made promises it didn’t keep, including treating migrant workers well. Saudi Arabia is claiming to treat workers well while killing many.
Qatar used multiple PR firms and individual spin-doctors to launder its image and tell lies to foreign media, and then used aggressive law firms to try to silence them. Saudi Arabia will do the same.
It goes without saying that there are positive things to say about both Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They want to be positive global actors, who are diversifying their economies for a post-oil future, while pouring billions from their sovereign wealth funds into assets and businesses around the world who benefit from that money.
Saudi Arabia has been stressing it is a young country demographically (true), and there is nothing wrong with wanting to invest in all sorts of sport and entertainment for its people. Also true.
There are lots of bad things to say about both too. They are repressive plutocratic dictatorships and believe they can have anything they want thanks to their oil wealth.
Fortunately for them, Gianni Infantino thinks they are the kind of folk he can do business with. Them and Putin’s Russia.
FIFA, the global governing body of football currently run by Infantino, demonstrably don’t give a toss about thousands of dead construction workers who have lived terrible lives for years in dreadful conditions until their hearts literally fail in order to build venues and supporting infrastructure.
Why don’t they care? Because FIFA have started to trouser hundreds of millions of Saudi dollars already and anticipate literally billions of dollars more in the years ahead.
Infantino seems to be comfortable with any despot, war-monger or autocratic ruler who will fill his organisation’s coffers. Putin. Qatar. Now MBS.
And before we get to MBS’s 2034 World Cup, Gianni will be an enthusiastic cheerleader at Donald Trump’s 2026 World Cup.
What follows in today’s piece includes:
The three main reasons behind FIFA awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia are hugely problematic.
Why the figure of 21,000 deaths in Saudi already on Vision 2030 projects is misleading, and how it’s probably not that bad (yet), but in the end will actually be much worse.
Details, and documents, that show how an autocratic World Cup-hosting state (Qatar), supported by FIFA, used lawyers and bullying and intimidation and, in effect, bribery, to try to prevent media scrutiny and factual reporting.
Three downloadable letters sent by the notoriously aggressive law firm Carter Ruck to my editors as I conducted an audit into migrant worker deaths in Qatar in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, to try to shut down my investigation.