Hosting the FIFA World Cup as a Megaevent: Business Opportunities and Human Rights

Abstract

This paper examines the FIFA World Cup as a paradigmatic megaevent situated at the intersection of the biggest business opportunities available and the human rights risk involved. From the tournament’s evolution since 1930 and its transformation into a global commercial and geopolitical spectacle, this paper analyzes how hosting nations pursue infrastructure investment, tourism revenue, international prestige and even sportswashing while simultaneously exposing vulnerable populations, local and neighbors, to labor exploitation, forced displacement, and the suppression of civil liberties. Through an examination of recent host countries with available data: South Africa (2010), Brazil (2014), Russia (2018), and Qatar (2022), this paper traces how FIFA’s contractual authority over host city agreements, hosting countries, sponsorship arrangements, and commercial licensing shapes both the opportunities available to some of the biggest corporations and the burdens held by migrant workers, displaced residents, and small local businesses. The paper further considers the legal and contractual mechanisms, including human rights clauses, force majeure provisions, morals clauses, and material adverse effect clauses, that could reconcile FIFA’s commercial imperatives with binding human rights protections. Applying the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, this paper argues that corporate sponsors, broadcasters, and host governments share overlapping obligations to prevent complicity in rights violations. It concludes that future World Cup host agreements must integrate enforceable human rights due diligence and grievance mechanisms if the tournament’s economic legacy is to align with, rather than undermine, principles of dignity, equity, and the rule of law.