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- Concacaf, Aston Martin and Dakar Rally organiser ASO also sent letters
- Coalition includes Human Rights Watch, ALQST and ESOHR
- Letters follow 2023 UN communication that working with Aramco could contravene international human rights law and standards
A coalition of ten human rights and climate groups has sent letters to six major sports organisations, including Fifa, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Formula One, expressing “grave concerns” over their sponsorship deals with the Saudi state-owned oil giant Aramco.
The coalition, which includes Human Rights Watch, ALQST and the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR), challenged the organisations to justify their partnerships with Aramco, amid concerns that such relationships may place them in breach of international human rights standards.
The letters, sent on 15th September to Fifa, the ICC, Formula One, Concacaf, Aston Martin and Dakar Rally organiser Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), requested responses within two weeks. No replies had been received at the time of writing.
These letters follow a 2023 communication from the United Nations (UN) to 12 financial institutions and five world governments, warning that working with Aramco could contravene international human rights laws and standards.
In the letters, the six sports organisations were asked to clarify, among other points, whether they have taken or plan to take any action with Aramco in relation to the 2023 UN communication that raised concerns about the company undermining the Paris Climate Agreement, and whether they have any process in place to review – and potentially end – their sponsorship agreements with Aramco if they are found to cause negative human rights or climate impacts.
Aramco, which recorded net income of more than US$106 billion in 2024, stated in its latest annual report that the company “intends to maintain its position as the world’s largest crude oil company by production volume”.
Aramco’s president and chief executive Amin Nasser said last year that “we should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately reflecting realistic demand assumptions,” noting that the world continues to consume record amounts of fossil fuels each year.
Citing that the burning of fossil fuels accounts for 80 per cent of carbon emissions, the letters express significant concerns about the sports bodies’ partnerships with Aramco, particularly in light of their own commitments to combating climate change.
For instance, Fifa president Gianni Infantino has previously referred to climate change as “one of the most pressing challenges of our time” and Formula One president and chief executive Stefano Domenicali claimed in 2024 that “sustainability is one of the most important factors to us not only as a sport, but as a business”.
Both Fifa and Formula One are signatories of the UN’s Sport for Climate Action Framework, which commits signatories to halving their emissions by 2030.
Signatories to the letter argue that, by directly platforming fossil fuel companies through sponsorship agreements, sports bodies risk undermining the Paris Agreement and enabling human rights harms caused by climate breakdown; threatening the sustainability of their own sports; and lending legitimacy to Aramco’s ‘greenwashing’, climate obstructionism and human rights record.
Aramco has reportedly increased its global sponsorship portfolio to more than US$1.3 billion across over 900 deals, a move some critics say is intended to protect its position as the world’s largest oil and gas company, while also helping to build Saudi Arabia’s soft power and cement its influence in global sport.
Aramco’s global sponsorship deal with Fifa, which covers next year’s men’s World Cup and the 2027 Women’s World Cup, is reported to be worth more than US$100 million per year. The company will also sponsor the 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. In the past week alone, Aramco has served as a major sponsor of the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix and the ongoing Women’s Cricket World Cup.
“While world-leading UN human rights experts have been raising the alarm about the impact of Aramco’s activities on the planet and humans, sports organisations like Fifa, Formula One and the ICC are happily taking the company’s money, disregarding not only their much vaunted social responsibility statements but also the future of the sports themselves,” said James Lynch of FairSquare, a human rights organisation with a focus on accountability in sport.
Maryam Aldossari, ALQST board member and senior lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, said: “Saudi Aramco provides a critical source of revenue for Mohamed bin Salman’s highly repressive state, which Saudi citizens have little or no ability to hold accountable. Sports bodies that give Aramco a global audience are helping to strengthen the country’s harsh autocratic system, where criticism of the government is punishable by prison, and a journalist was executed earlier this year.”
The letters arrive after more than 100 professional women’s soccer players signed an open letter to Fifa last year urging the governing body to end its sponsorship with Aramco.
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