FIFA Reverses Saudi Sponsorship of Women’s Globe Cup

In an off-field victory for human rights, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has reversed its sponsorship plans with Stop by Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s state tourism authority, for the 2023 Women’s Globe Cup. The Women’s Globe Cup is the flagship international women’s football occasion and has extended been a moment to celebrate women’s rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and inclusion.

FIFA’s decision to award Visit Saudi sponsorship of the Women’s Globe Cup showed shocking disregard for the repression and suffering of Saudi Arabia’s courageous women’s rights defenders, which leading female players rightly condemned as an “own purpose.”

Saudi Arabia is a international outlier on women’s rights and also violates the rights of LGBT folks. As lately as 2018, ladies and girls were barred from sport in schools – or even watching sporting events in stadiums. On International Women’s Day in 2022, Saudi authorities passed Saudi Arabia’s initial Private Status Law, which codifies repressive male guardianship guidelines and contains discriminatory provisions against ladies regarding marriage, divorce, and choices about their youngsters. In August 2022, Saudi Arabia sentenced Salma Al-Shehab, a Saudi doctoral student who had been studying in the United Kingdom, to 34 years in prison for her use of Twitter.

Human Rights Watch has documented Saudi Arabia’s longstanding practice of “sportswashing,” which entails spending billions of dollars hosting significant sporting, entertainment, and cultural events as a deliberate technique to deflect criticism from the country’s pervasive and systemic violations of human rights.

Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA on February three to underscore the contradiction among Saudi Arabia’s Tourism Authority sponsorship of the Women’s Globe Cup and the football body’s claims that human rights are a essential aspect of its values. We also asked FIFA what consultation with players, host nations, and other stakeholders it undertook prior to signing off on the sponsorship deal. FIFA has not replied to the letter.

FIFA has incorporated human rights considering the fact that 2016 and adopted a human rights policy stating that “human rights commitments are binding on all FIFA bodies and officials.” In practice, it has not often lived up to these pledges.

Females football players are proper to protest that their game was getting monetized by FIFA, without safety, access, equal pay for equal operate, consultation, or permission.

FIFA’s choice to reverse the Stop by Saudi sponsorship of the Women’s Globe Cup ought to be a initial step toward constant due diligence and remedy on human rights across all of its operations.