{"id":33160,"date":"2023-12-08T23:55:10","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T23:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/saudi-arabia-defends-fifa-world-cup-2034-bid-rejects-sportswashing-claims\/"},"modified":"2023-12-08T23:55:10","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T23:55:10","slug":"saudi-arabia-defends-fifa-world-cup-2034-bid-rejects-sportswashing-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/saudi-arabia-defends-fifa-world-cup-2034-bid-rejects-sportswashing-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia defends FIFA World Cup 2034 bid, rejects &#8220;sportswashing&#8221; claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure class=\"featuredimg\">\n <\/p>\n<p class=\"captionimg\">Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul data-sourcepos=\"3:1-4:31\">\n<li data-sourcepos=\"3:1-3:60\">Saudi Arabia\u2019s Sports Minister defends the FIFA World Cup 2034 bid.<\/li>\n<li data-sourcepos=\"4:1-4:31\">Accusations of \u201csportswashing\u201d were rejected.<\/li>\n<li data-sourcepos=\"4:1-4:31\">Prince Abdulaziz defends attracting top players.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a Jeddah interview with the media, Saudi Arabia\u2019s minister of sports, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, defended his nation\u2019s right to host the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bolnews.com\/sports\/2023\/10\/fifa-bans-ex-spanish-fa-chief-rubiales-for-three-years\/\">FIFA<\/a> World Cup 2034.<\/p>\n<p>Many think that Saudi Arabia has been spending a lot of money on sports in recent years to \u201csportswash\u201d the Kingdom\u2019s image due to its human rights record, but the Minister clarifies that the goal is to boost the economy in order to encourage tourists.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2021, the Gulf nation has spent more than \u00a35 billion on sports and has played host to some of the largest competitions, including F1, boxing, and most famously, the Saudi Pro League, which drew celebrities like Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo.<\/p>\n<p>Campaigners think that despite Saudi Arabia\u2019s continuous efforts to make the nation more sports-friendly, these efforts are only intended to divert attention from more pressing concerns such as human rights\u2014a practice they refer to as \u201csportswashing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Declaring that a large portion of the population in the nation is under 30, Prince Abdulaziz called the charges \u201cvery shallow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTwenty million of our population are below the age of 30, so we need to get them engaged\u2014we are playing our role to develop sports within the world and to be part of the international community,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve showcased that\u2014we\u2019ve hosted more than 85 global events, and we\u2019ve delivered on the highest level. We want to attract the world through sports. Hopefully, by 2034, people will have an extraordinary World Cup,\u201d the Minister responded. \u201cHopefully, people will have an extraordinary World Cup by 2034.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, Prince Abdulaziz defended his nation\u2019s efforts to attract top players like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bolnews.com\/showbiz\/2023\/10\/cristiano-ronaldo-ignores-salman-khan-at-saudi-arabia-boxing-event\/\">Ronaldo<\/a>, claiming that the English Premier League followed suit but that nobody took issue with it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the Premier League did that, and that\u2019s how they started. So nobody questioned them when they did it,\u201d said Prince Abdulaziz when asked if the spending was a threat to more established European leagues.<\/p>\n<p>[embedepost slug = \u201c\/saudi-arabia-to-host-fifa-world-cup-2034-after-austrlia-drops-out\/\u201d]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal Saudi Arabia\u2019s Sports Minister defends the FIFA World Cup 2034 bid. Accusations of \u201csportswashing\u201d were rejected. Prince Abdulaziz defends attracting top players. In a Jeddah interview with the media, Saudi Arabia\u2019s minister of sports, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal, defended his nation\u2019s right to host the FIFA World [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bolnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/FotoJet-2023-12-08T154120.108.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}