December 20 -A senior Swiss lawyer who for nine years has sat on various Swedish FA committees and is currently chair of its appeals committee, has resigned from the federation over its failure to protest the award of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia.
Kerstin Elserth told Fotsbalkanallen that she is leaving the Swedish FA (SvFF) die to its “spineless” acceptance of the FIFA 2034 World Cup bid process and its unquestioned acceptance of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and its engagement in “advanced sportswashing”.
“Sweden could at least have abstained from voting, like Norway did. For this is a dictatorship we’re talking about. It was the same in Qatar (for the award of the 2022 World Cup), but then there were more candidates and maybe one nurtured a hope that the World Championship would lead to improvements in the country. But that didn’t happen,” says Elserth.
“Now it’s enough, I think. I no longer want to have any connection to Swedish football when it’s like this.”
FIFA’s executive engineered a fast track World Cup 2034 bid that ensured only bids from Asia and Oceania could be submitted. Australia showed interest but pulled out citing lack of time to prepare a bid, leaving Saudi Arabia as the sole candidate.
FIFA then followed up with a much-criticised bid evaluation report that gave Saudi Arabia the highest bid evaluation score ever, and an independent human rights report that was widely ridiculed from both within football and by human rights groups, none of whom were consulted by the report authors at previously highly respected law firm Clifford Chance that has a thriving Saudi practice.
While a number of federations expressed concern over the 2034 hosting award, with the Swiss and the Norwegians demanding FIFA follow a new set of rigid criteria governing human rights around the 2034 World Cup and within the country, FIFA has remained completely silent on the issue.
The longer they remain silent and without discernible policy, the more fuel is thrown on to the scrutiny of Saudi Arabia by civil society worldwide. A scrutinyand concern that FIFA’s ‘football family’ – who are supported by civil society worldwide from public broadcasters to major sponsors – have appeared to totally ignored.
The chairman of SvFF, Fredrik Reinfeldt, said in a statement to Fotbollskanalen that “we respect that people can have different opinions”.
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