The Billion-Dollar Gamble: How Global Sports Sold Its Soul to the World's Biggest Polluter

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A coalition of human rights groups has issued an unprecedented challenge to FIFA, Formula 1, and cricket's governing body over their partnerships with Saudi Aramco—warning they may be violating international law

The letters arrived in mid-September, stark and uncompromising. Six of the world's most powerful sports organizations—FIFA, the International Cricket Council, Formula 1, and others—received formal communications from a coalition of ten human rights and climate organizations. The message was clear: justify your sponsorship deals with Saudi Aramco, or face accusations of enabling what United Nations experts have called an existential threat to human rights.

The sports bodies didn't respond. Not one of them.

Two weeks after the deadline passed, the silence speaks volumes about an uncomfortable truth: global sports has become addicted to oil money, and the world's largest corporate polluter has found the perfect vehicle for reputation laundering.

The UN's Unprecedented Warning

At the heart of this confrontation lies a remarkable 2023 communication from UN Special Rapporteurs and the Working Group on Business and Human Rights—the first time these experts have taken action against an oil major's human rights responsibilities for climate change. Their target: Saudi Aramco, responsible for an estimated 4.38% of global CO2 emissions in 2023, making it the world's single biggest corporate emitter.

The UN communication pulled no punches. It accused Aramco of "undermining the Paris Agreement in the face of the existential threat to human rights posed by climate change." It raised concerns about the company's "greenwashing" through misleading marketing campaigns. It questioned how Aramco's expansion plans—the company openly states its intention to maintain its position as the world's largest crude oil producer—could be reconciled with international climate commitments.

The UN experts posed ten specific questions to Aramco about its human rights responsibilities and climate impact.

Two years later, Aramco still hasn't responded.

Sports' $1.3 Billion Oil Addiction

While Aramco ignored the UN, it was busy elsewhere—spending over $1.3 billion across more than 900 sponsorship deals, transforming itself from an oil company into a ubiquitous presence across global sports. The strategy appears deliberate: between 2021 and 2023, Aramco spent nearly $200 million just on buying advertising space through its marketing partner.

The investments have purchased extraordinary access. Aramco is now FIFA's "Major Worldwide Partner" for the 2026 and 2027 World Cups—a deal reportedly making it FIFA's biggest-paying sponsor. It's a "Global Partner" of Formula 1 and a title sponsor of the Aston Martin F1 team. It sponsors cricket's major tournaments, including the upcoming 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka. This week alone, Aramco branding will appear at both the Singapore Grand Prix and the Women's Cricket World Cup.

The timing is remarkable. FIFA President Gianni Infantino announced Saudi Arabia would host the 2034 men's World Cup in October 2023—before any bidding process had taken place. Two weeks later, reports emerged that Aramco would become FIFA's biggest sponsor. The deal was confirmed in April 2024.

The Contradiction at Sport's Heart

The irony would be almost comedic if the stakes weren't so high. Every organization challenged by the human rights coalition has made sweeping public commitments to sustainability and climate action.

FIFA claims climate change is "one of the most pressing challenges of our time" and has pledged to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030. It's a signatory to the UN's Sport for Climate Action Framework, which commits participants to contributing to Paris Agreement goals.

Formula 1 President Stefano Domenicali has stated that "sustainability is one of the most important factors to us not only as a sport, but as a business." The sport aims to be net-zero carbon by 2030.

The ICC promotes its "Cricket for Good" initiative, claiming to leverage cricket's power to "positively impact the lives of children and families worldwide"—even as UNICEF warns that children are hit hardest by climate change.

Now these organizations are taking money from a company that the UN says undermines the very climate agreements they claim to support. On Aramco's own website and in sponsorship materials, the company promotes itself as committed to sustainability and the energy transition. Yet its CEO said in 2024 that "we should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas," and its latest annual report makes clear it intends to increase production to meet what it projects as growing demand.

"The UN Working Group has raised concerns about greenwashing," the coalition's letters note. By platforming Aramco's sustainability messaging, sports bodies "risk condoning" that greenwashing.

The Athletes Speak Out

Not everyone is staying silent. Over 135 professional female footballers—with a combined 2,700 international caps—have called on FIFA to drop Aramco as a partner. They've been joined by 36 male players.

"The choice to partner with Aramco helps the Saudi regime distract from its harmful treatment of women and the planet," said Sofie Junge Pedersen, a Danish international with 88 caps. "Values are not just words to write on a page—you need to live them and stand by them."

Dutch international Tessel Middag was more pointed: "Over 100 professional female players asked FIFA three very simple questions last year and received no response. The fact that FIFA ignored the concerns of these women shows a lack of consideration for female players, and suggests that they had no good answers."

The athletes also highlighted human rights concerns beyond climate. They pointed to Saudi fitness instructor Manahel al-Otaibi, sentenced to 11 years in prison for advocating for women's rights. They noted that Aramco provides critical revenue to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which Human Rights Watch says has facilitated serious human rights violations, including involvement in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Sports Eating Itself

Perhaps the most bitter irony is that climate change threatens the very existence of the sports taking Aramco's money.

Cricket is particularly vulnerable. A report this year revealed that nearly half of the Indian Premier League matches were played in heat conditions classified as "Extreme Caution" or "Danger." The sport's own advocacy group, Cricket for Climate, warns that "extreme weather events such as flooding, decreasing air quality, rising temperatures and energy costs are threatening the future of our sport."

Football faces similar threats. The FIFA Club World Cup in the USA this summer saw serious player welfare concerns due to extreme heat, with substitutes in some games forced to wait in locker rooms rather than on benches.

Formula 1's race calendar is increasingly affected by extreme weather, from flooding to unprecedented heat.

"No sport is worth turning a blind eye to human rights violations," said Katie Rood, a New Zealand international footballer. "The leaders of sports like FIFA and Formula 1 claim that they care about the planet, but it's impossible to reconcile these commitments with taking money from the largest oil and gas company in the world."

The Questions That Won't Go Away

The coalition—which includes Human Rights Watch, FairSquare, ALQST for Human Rights, and seven other organizations—asked each sports body five specific questions:

Did they conduct due diligence on Aramco's climate impact before partnering? Did they assess the risks? Do they have processes to potentially end the partnerships if Aramco causes negative impacts? Do they agree with the UN's concerns? Did they raise these concerns with Aramco?

None of the organizations responded within the requested two-week deadline. Their silence leaves these questions unanswered—and raises more troubling ones about what sports organizations are willing to overlook for money.

James Lynch of FairSquare captured the stakes: "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 1 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."

What Happens Next

The coalition has indicated it will publish a comprehensive report on sports organizations partnering with Aramco. FIFA and Formula 1, as signatories to the UN Sport for Climate Action Framework, are expected to face scrutiny at the framework's upcoming AGM in London on October 6.

But the larger question remains unanswered: Can global sports continue to claim moral authority on human rights and climate action while accepting over a billion dollars from the world's largest oil company—a company that UN experts say is undermining international climate cooperation?

The sports organizations' silence suggests they either don't have good answers or aren't willing to provide them. Meanwhile, Aramco's branding will continue to appear on pitches, tracks, and stadiums around the world. Athletes will compete under its logos. Millions of fans will see its name associated with the sports they love.

And the planet will continue warming—at a rate that may eventually make many of these sports impossible to play at all.

In refusing to respond to legitimate questions about their partnerships with Aramco, these sports organizations have made a choice. They've decided that a billion dollars in sponsorship money is worth more than consistency with their stated values, more than the concerns of their own athletes, and more than the warnings of UN human rights experts about the existential threat of climate change.

It's a gamble—and the stakes have never been higher.

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