The Chaser Report - FIFA's 2034 Woke World Cup

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Dom loves football and is overjoyed to hear that FIFA has decided to grow a sense of ethics. Ethics that mean there's only one place woke enough to host the FIFA 2034 World Cup. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Now, Charles, let's talk about something very important. Let's talk about football. You know how much I care, football, the round ball game. We don't talk about sport often on this podcast. We talked a little about the Tilly's last year.

That was good. But it's time to talk about the men's football. And, you know, a couple of years back when Qatar had the World Cup, that was a low point. Let's just draw a line in the sand now. The benefits of hindsight and also foresight before the World Cup. Having it in Qatar seemed like a terrible thing to do. All sorts of questions about human rights. A dark stain.

Charles, six and a half thousand workers died during the course of building the stadiums. I think FIFA learned a lot from that. Well, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Without breaking some actual heads. Yeah, that's what happened. Yeah, so they learned a lot, did they? Yeah. They really did.

Self-reflection. Yes. Yes. So FIFA has decided this is really important, Charles. I want to stick up for FIFA because they've done some great stuff. The new president, Johnny Infantino, he's come in new broom and changed everything. Because FIFA used to be so corrupt. Yes.

Now, FIFA has decided that they're going to apply the United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights to their work. Oh, okay. This means, I'm quoting FIFA's statutes here. Is it going to be held in Norway or something? Yeah, probably. I imagine... Denmark. Only Scandinavia, right?

They're going to... And I quote, the FIFA statutes, they're going to be committed to respecting all internationally recognized human rights, and they're going to strive to promote the protection of those rights. Never again. This is something we can clean to, child. So we can say the world has improved. Football will never again be in a corrupt petrochemical state.

So it'll be like the rainbow games. It'll be gay rights here, women's rights there. Yes. It's going to be a woke. It's the woke. The Woke Cup. The Woke Cup is going to have FIFA Woke Cup. The FIFA Woke Cup.

And, Charles, I'm particularly excited for this to happen. I've been to one World Cup before in Germany, 2008. One of the highlights of my life. Oh, yes. It was just wonderful. And it's when you can get behind it because not only is it great sport, but it's also great values. I want to go again. I want to celebrate the common humanity and the fact that we're all equal in front

of sport, we're all equal. And you can take not. just you but your daughters and your wife. I've got daughters, you know, my daughters all want to come. They'll all want to come. And enjoy the freedom. Yes. Of the Saudi Arabia World Cup in 2034. Charles, Australia were thinking of bidding for this. Yeah. But it seems as though even though the bidding process doesn't end until the end of this year, it's already over. And the winners were Saudi Arabia. More in a moment. So this is the thing, Charles. FIFA have come out and seen.

Look, let's not be racist here. No. No, no, there's a process, right? I don't want, I can see you assuming, I can see in your face of scepticism. You're just going, you're just thinking about the bone sores, aren't you? Oh, yeah. That was just one journalist. Just one.

Yes. And that was in the past. That was in the past. We're talking about the future, 2034. So FIFA's going to go through a process because they won't have the world. They won't give the World Cup to Saudis. Unless, you know. Unless they pay a lot of bribes.

Totally change. Totally change. Oh, totally change. Oh, right. Because they've got the new rules. Saudi Arabia is going to become a democracy, is it? So you need to have decent business and human rights. What's a business right?

I'd love to know what a business. We hold these businesses to be. I think it means don't murder migrant workers as a starting point. So let's just look at this. I've got a Guardian article here that explains everything. The Guardian's got it. I wouldn't say they're unbiased. They're a little anti-Saudi, but we'll try and wade through the bias, shall we, Charles?

Yes. So human rights. This is something that's very important to FIFA, okay? FIFA really believes in human rights. So it says here, according to the very respected Freedom in the World Report by Freedom House, you know Freedom House assesses civil liberties and human rights. Saudi Arabia, you know what this score is out of 100? Saudi Arabia?

Can you go negative or is it like on a scale of zero? No, it goes zero to 100. Come on, don't be ridiculous. Zero to 100. Well, they've got some rights. Women are allowed to drive now. So I'd say, I don't know, 13, lower. Really?

Lower. Like, is it in double digits? Ten? It's not quite in double digits. Okay. Oh, so like seven. No, it's eight. Oh, okay.

It's eight out of a hundred. It's all right. It's not seven. Not seven. They've pointed to things. How do they get eight? Well, I think the driving thing is... The driving's seven of them.

I mean, let's just start here. Political dissent punished by death. So if you dissent, you die. But that then means that's quite good because that means that everyone who's still alive is not a dissent. There's a lot of cohesion. Yes. It's a lot of cohesion.

That's right. Women are legally required to obey their husbands in a reasonable manner. And presumably over time, if you kill all the dissenters, then you can probably abolish that law because there would be, everyone just would be in agreement. And they'd know, would they, without having the law. So, yeah, women have got to obey their husbands and homosexuality is illegal. And it's an absolute monarchy. But other than, I mean, freedom. What even is freedom, Charles?

The freedom to what. Soccer is all that I care about. Look, how much we've abused. our freedom just in the last few weeks. You know, like, the free press and all that we had was gossip about things that weren't true. That's true. If the British Royal's were able to

kill dissenters, yes. That would have been a much more efficient system. Yes, and it would have been, it would have arrived at a truth more quickly. That's right. Yeah. Definitely, the Princess of Wales would have come out and said what was really going on if it hadn't been relentless stuff with the press. She just would have taken a time.

Okay, so that's one aspect. This is where it gets tense, Charles. What? Not that? In order to... Okay, so FIFA's determined to have human rights. So what's going to happen to all the gay players? There aren't any. Oh, there aren't any.

There's no gay players. Isn't that amazing? I think there might be one somewhere, but there's... No, they're all in the closet. What an amazing sport. Yeah, they're all in the closet. So what has to happen? This is the...

Be it's not true with the Matildas. Not so much. That really is a rainbow. The point where's the Saudis want the Women's World Cup. That would actually be genuine progress. Okay. So here's the thing. FIFA is insisting that there be a, like a report into human rights that conducted.

There's got to be an independent assessment submitted by the Saudi bid by summer, by the middle of the year, like European summer. There's got to be an independent report that says how human rights are going in Saudi Arabia. And FIFA's obliged to assess human rights risks as part of one of six selection criteria to award the World Cup to the one country that's still bidding for it. So the difficulty is choice. Right. So, no, everyone else is pulled out, but they're still going to go through the process.

Sure. And what's it called when you pay lip service to something in order for the process? Forgone conclusion? Yes, that's it. A Russian election? So basically, I mean, Australia, we're going to bid for this. Don't forget. We want it to bid.

We've got the facilities, but then we realise Saudi is the Saudis bought it. And so what happens if they get through the human rights process and they go, ooh. Well, they've got to work out how to do. Just do the report because you know how many human rights organizations there are on the ground in Saudi Arabia? None. None. None are allowed to operate. I don't know how.

I suspect they'd be bone-sword to death. Yeah. How will the assessors get in and do their independent assessment and get out of life? Well, maybe it's easier to write the report if you're not on the ground. You could do it via Zoom, couldn't you? Yeah. Be safer. It's easier to sort of hypothesise about, you know, how good Saudi Arabia is.

Because they'll be being repaid to come up with the right. You just hire PWC. Of course you would, yeah. That will own human rights organisation. PWC, okay, so they've got to do that. They've got to have the human rights report. Tell them what answer you need and they'll deliver the results. Yeah.

And probably give you a few tax tips. But Charles, they would then also sell the report to the other country's bidding, presumably. Anyway, okay, so that's the issue going on. So human rights, the Saudis claim that their human rights have improved. So that's all I need to hear. Yeah, that's all you need to hear. Okay, what about Labor rights? So this is particularly awkward.

FIFA has pledged to ensure, workers' rights are protected and their safety is assured. Apparently, there's an inquiry going on about whether they did that sufficiently in Qatar. I don't want to prejudge the results to the inquiry, Charles, but quite a large pile of bodies would suggest there were some shortcomings. But was that FIFA to blame or was that the workers who put up with the standards without and didn't inform their bosses?

And they are the ones that chose to hand over their passports to their bosses. Yeah, exactly. Like, what they should have done is they should have been a little bit more forthright in their slavery. They had to have Qataris over a barrel, didn't they? Yes, exactly. Because who was going to build the stadiums? It was the Bangladeshis coming out.

They're the ones who are to blame for their point. You know, on the hook if they run into OH and S issues. Well, they can't run, Charles. They can't run because the bosses have got their passport, so there's no way out. No. Okay. Anyway, so the Saudis, so the Guardian Coast quote Mustafa Khadri of a human rights and labor organisation called Equidem.

who says, there's no question that Saudi Arabia has the worst labor conditions of any of the Gulf states. What? Worse than Qatar? Yes. And they have the most power in the region. So they're the most powerful country and they have the worst labor conditions. They have gotten rid of the kafala system here, apparently, which binds workers to employers. So they can kind of move from one exploiting employer to another.

This guy's pretty keen for them to do the workers to be able to join trade unions. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that might go against the being executed. And he also wants domestic workers and female workers have the same protections as male workers in Saudi Arabia. Yeah, definitely going to happen. But it says here... And this all has to happen by the end of the year.

For the report. For the report. Kedri is not confident. It says he that substantial change will be achieved, Charles. So this report comes in and says, oh, there's all these terrible problems. But if there's no other bidder, then they can also say, but of all the people running for this position, Saudi Arabia is the best.

Yeah, that's true. They're number one. Yeah, they're number one. Number one. Amongst the bidders, this is the best employment law and human rights conditions of anyone. I mean, Australia has just proven in the Women's World Cup that we can host it really well. We've got the stadiums ready to go. Human rights, okay, sure, there are some shortcomings, but we're no Saudi Arabia.

But we didn't bid. We pulled out. We realised we'd get one vote again, presumably. The Chaser Report. News you know you can't trust. They've also changed the criteria child. to fit Saudi Arabia better. It used to be that you had to have seven stadiums.

You know how the World Cup is on? It's huge. It's going to be bigger than ever. They've now got 48 teams rather than 32. And they've somehow figured out it'll be all hot, weren't it? Yeah, in Qatar they had to have air conditioning in the stadiums. But they've changed the rules of the bid. So you only need four stadiums rather than seven.

And fortunately, Saudis have four. Well, they will have four. This sounds a bit like a fix. So it will be okay. Don, it was seven. So they're just going to have. around the clock, are they? I guess so.

So you've just got to do twice as many matches a day. Well, it's more, yeah. So, I mean, with fewer stadiums and another, I don't know, 50% of games or whatever. It'll just be 24 hours. They'll have to just returf. Like, every single day, they'll have to bring in more grass. Yeah. And replace the grass.

But no, why not? I mean, this is the country that's building the line, Charles. They can build anything. Now, Dom, I've got a solution. Oh, yeah? I've got a solution to see us through and arrive at a result that we want. The first thing is, what we do is we say to Saudi Arabia, okay, you can have the games as long as we get an independent, external, you know, person to run them, right?

Yes. Someone who can deliver on the promises that are presumably going to be made around, you know, human rights fixing up all that sort of stuff. But they will, they'll need somebody who is, you know, in their way of thinking. Like they won't, they won't want to just hire, you know, some bit, like any rando. They don't want anyone with human rights credentials. Yeah, exactly. And I'm thinking the perfect person to run the FIFA World Cup 2034 is dictator Dan Andrews.

Dictator Dan. He's just resigned. Yep. Maybe because of this. Maybe he saw it coming. They'll find out, Saudi Arabia, we say, oh, we've got a old dictator here. And they'll go, yeah. We've got a spare dictator.

They'd have to make him a member of the royal family. He'd have to take an honor on another wife. who was from the Saudi royal family. Yeah, that's all right. So he'd be Prince Dictator Dan. Prince dictator Dan. He goes over there. He sasses it all out.

You know how he can just announce things and explain things and he just imposes his wheel. And he'll go, oh, we're going to fix up this. Have a long press conference. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, exactly. Just hold a press conference until everyone's questioned out. And then, shortly before the 2034 World Cup is due to go on, he'll just cancel it. Problem solved.

I wonder what you've got to do with his track record of track-recorded track-recorded events. Charles, that is a very good idea. I think I've got an even better idea. Yeah. Okay. We know, so Saudi Arabia wants the World Cup for reasons of prestige, right? Same way that they've just bought golf.

They buy sport, try and sports wash their regime. Yeah, yeah, make sense. We have a country that is very good at hosting sporting events. I think, you know, 2000 Olympics, probably the best ever. The Women's World Cup was fantastic. It was brilliant. It was really good. We've got a diverse country with human rights and all that sort of stuff.

But we have no interest. international clout. So what we need to do, it's very simple. We sell Australia to the Saudis. And so it's being held in Saudi Arabia, but it's physically in Australia. So we can all get to go and see it. But our country is simply just part of Saudi Arabia. We're an asset. But whose laws would apply to our country? It doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, just a little bit of thorough law here. Oh, okay. It's just the odd beheading. So we would just, we would get their laws as well.

Well, you might maybe, maybe not till after the World Cup. I think maybe the day after the World Cup finishes, that's when the brutal repression begins. That's when the journalists start worrying about their limbs. Mind you, I mean, at least it would spice things up, wouldn't it? Because Australian politics, I mean, you know, we'd try and make it interesting, but it's a bit dull. But also, Charles, they would think what they'd do to the housing crisis. They'd come in, they'd build another one of the noms, a giant line. We'd all just get a house in the line, which.

as we know, is going to be kind of like a prison in a way. Yes. But why would we want to go to anywhere else? We have everything that we need, thanks to the Saudis. Okay, done. Let's do it. So Australia still gets to host the World Cup, which is what we want most of all. We're the best ones to do it.

They get our human rights record and we get their laws. Yeah. And everyone wins. It's basically a sort of geopolitical version of a sports wash. I love it. Our gear is from road. We are part of the Aconocles Network. Look, more great solutions tomorrow.

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