By: Ana Garcia-Velez
From the Olympic Games to the World Cup and the Super Bowl, mega sporting events draw in millions of viewers worldwide. In fact, “85% of internet users say they regularly watch at least one sport online or on television,” equating to billions of people across the globe. It’s easy to understand why these events attract such viewership—they showcase the highest levels of athleticism and feats the average person can only dream of. Moreover, there is undeniable fun in rooting for your team or favorite athlete and experiencing the drama that sport offers. As for the venues, cities across the world welcome these “events as an opportunity to exhibit their infrastructure, attract business, and inflate their international reputation.” Despite the fanfare and mass viewership surrounding mega sporting events, there exists a dangerously overlooked reality—the human rights implications of these events. Although these events potentially threaten a myriad of human rights, violations “fall into three [main] categories: labor exploitation, forced displacement, and suppression of civil liberties.” Abusive policies and circumstances documented at mega sporting events violate many of the rights protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, along with other foundational human rights documents. Thus, it is absolutely essential for human rights activists, event organizers, and local governments to collaborate on creating a plan for safeguarding human rights throughout all stages of large-scale sporting events.
One need not look far to find examples of human rights violations at mega sporting events. The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar made international headlines due to egregious attacks on the human rights of construction workers, stadium personnel, and other event personnel leading up to and during the soccer events. These problems initially arose in 2010, when FIFA named Qatar as the host country despite there being “no human rights due diligence and no set conditions about protections for migrant workers who needed to construct the massive infrastructure.” Moreover, FIFA failed to consider larger, systemic human rights violations taking place in Qatar, including violations against journalists, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and others. As a result of these failures, it is estimated that “at least 6,500 migrant workers died during the construction of World Cup venues and infrastructure,” according to one report. In response to the tragic outcome, FIFA commissioned a report to examine the World Cup-related human rights abuses that took place in Qatar. The study found that employers, the Qatari government, and FIFA were all, to some extent, responsible for the violations. Moreover, it advised FIFA to use the Qatar Legacy Fund to bolster and invest in human rights protections. Similar human rights violations were identified in the construction of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris; there, it has been alleged that undocumented individuals were employed in unsafe conditions to construct facilities, including the Olympic Village.
The U.N. also identified that, throughout the Paris Olympic Games, “unnecessary and disproportionate” security measures were adopted—measures that undermined democratic civil liberties. Although security measures to protect against terrorism and other threats are necessary—especially in the context of hosting an Olympic Games—these measures must abide by both international and domestic law. With regard to the 2024 Olympic Games, experts told the U.N. that “[i]n too many cases, security measures were seemingly applied in an indiscriminate or overbroad manner, that was not necessary or proportionate to meet any specific, evidence-based risks posed by particular individuals.” Moreover, experts “found patterns of discriminatory policing, targeting individuals or groups for political views, religious affiliation or ethnic background . . . [and] children were heavily affected by some policies.” The Paris Olympics can therefore serve as a powerful reminder that although security policies are integral to protecting human rights, they must not go so far as to violate international and domestic law.
Mega sporting events can also pose serious threats to local communities by way of gentrification projects. Although by no means unique to Brazil, the mega sporting events hosted in the country—including the 2007 Pan American Games, 2014 World Cup, and 2016 Summer Olympics—have been the subject of staunch criticism due to instances of forced displacement. Put simply, the forced displacement process removes families from their homes (often generational homes) in the name “of beautification projects that attract global capital and tourists.” According to one author, in Brazil, “the scope and violent manner in which Brazilians have been forcibly removed from their favelas [‘informal, urban settlements built without oversight from public authority’], in many cases without due process or compensation, has been so extreme as to cause violent protests leading up to and during the World Cup.” These displacement efforts violate a number of human rights and domestic laws and undermine Brazilian social policies and efforts.
The issues surrounding mega sporting events are highly relevant in the current moment, as Italy is hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina. With respect to human rights, the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”) states that it “affirms its commitment to respecting human rights within its remit, in accordance with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) . . . [t]hese commitments are enshrined in the Olympic Charter, the IOC Code of Ethics and the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights.” Although the IOC is certainly engaging with human rights and thereby showing respect to this body of law, protests surrounding the social, environmental, and human rights impacts of the 2026 Olympic Games have already erupted. Only time will tell what the legacy of these Games will hold, but the IOC’s engagement with human rights and relevant stakeholders is certainly encouraging. With that said, the Olympics’ history is one fraught with human rights challenges and, if the Games are to engage with human rights seriously, the IOC must do more.
Labor exploitation, suppression of civil liberties, and forced displacement are just some of the many human rights violations associated with mega sporting events. Although these events can unify communities as they rally around their team, provide significant economic gains, and—of course—offer a great deal of fun, there are serious human rights issues associated with them. This is precisely why organizers, local governments, international organizations, and human rights activists must partner to shed light on these issues and, more importantly, make progress. These sporting events have great potential for supporting human rights, a quality “enhanced by the fact that sport is inherently tied to sporting values and fair play, and sport’s history of providing a stage for progressive interventions in issues such as community relations, discrimination, gender equality and personal and social development.” Although organizers often claim that sporting events should be detached from politics, the truth is that the two cannot be truly severed, and it is counterproductive to their legitimacy to claim otherwise. In addition to the aforementioned list of stakeholders, viewers have an important role to play in tackling this issue—using their leverage to make human rights an important consideration of mega sporting events.
