“But we know there are deficits”
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The German Football Association (DFB) will vote at the extraordinary FIFA Congress next Wednesday to award the 2034 World Cup to the controversial candidate country Saudi Arabia. DFB President Bernd Neuendorf confirmed this in Frankfurt am Main. The presidium decided this unanimously in an extraordinary meeting, said the 63-year-old. It is not an option to abstain or vote against the award. The decision is supported by the entire association.
“It was unanimously seen that way when we spoke to the regional associations afterwards. There wasn’t a single voice that said that we were going in the wrong direction here.” According to Neuendorf, the representatives of the German Football League (DFL), headed by executive committee spokesman Hans-Joachim Watzke, also support the decision.
The award for 2034 will take place at the digital congress en bloc with the 2030 tournament, which is scheduled to take place in Spain, Portugal and Morocco after the opening games in South America. In order to enable double awarding, the world association FIFA decided to change its statutes. There is also only one application for the 2030 World Cup, and the DFB will also approve this.
DFB: We are aware of the situation in Saudi Arabia
In Neuendorf’s opinion, even if the award had been awarded individually, there would have been no changes. A clear vote for Saudi Arabia would not have changed anything, nor would it have changed anything about DFB approval, as he said. “With so much support for Saudi Arabia around the world, one could have said: We’ll do that in a separate vote,” said Neuendorf.
The awarding of the World Cup to Saudi Arabia is controversial due to human rights violations in the country. “We are all aware of the civil rights situation and also the reprisals in Saudi Arabia. This is not something we condone in any way,” explained Neuendorf. A rejection or even a boycott would not have achieved what we wanted to achieve, as the DFB official further explained. “I think we can only exert influence if we say: Yes, we agree, but we know there are deficits.”
The fan initiative Fairness United had called on the DFB to vote against awarding the World Cup to Saudi Arabia. It was contrary to all ethical principles of sport to select such a state to host the World Cup, it said in an open letter. “This decision by FIFA follows the logic of profit and corruption and mocks its own noble commitment to human rights and sustainability.” Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International are also criticizing the planned award.
Neuendorf: TV billion-dollar result “extremely pleasing”
Meanwhile, Neuendorf described the billion-dollar result from the DFL’s national TV rights auction as “extremely pleasing”. “That was a very, very good result that serves football as a whole and also the DFB,” said the association president. The financially struggling DFB receives three percent of national and international media revenue from the DFL every year. This is regulated in the so-called basic contract.
The DFL will receive a total of 4.484 billion euros for national media rights for the 2025/26 to 2028/29 seasons. This means that the league will generate 84 million euros more than the current deals. The DFL has so far generated revenues in the low three-digit million range from the rights abroad.
The DFB made a profit again for the first time in 2023 after losses of millions in previous years. The association recorded a surplus after taxes of around 4.9 million euros. The DFB expects a positive annual result again in 2024. “We have always said: economic reason – despite all the challenges we face – is the top priority,” said Neuendorf. “And I believe that the figures that we present and can show at the end of this year indicate that we have achieved that.”