In the early hours of Saturday 30 November, Fifa released a glowing evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s bid to host the 2034 World Cup, giving it the joint-highest score of any bidding nation and declaring it carried only a “medium” human rights risk.

At the same time, it slipped out a long-awaited report on whether it should compensate migrant workers who suffered severe labour abuses on projects linked to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Despite a recommendation from its own subcommittee on human rights and social responsibility that it do so, Fifa’s answer was, in effect, a resounding no.

The reports provoked a backlash from human rights groups, which called the former an “astonishing whitewash” and the latter “insulting”. The uncompromising language reflects frustration within human rights organisations that Fifa has learned nothing from Qatar and a belief that the gross exploitation of cheap labour is about to be repeated.

When the Guardian first revealed the appalling conditions endured by low-wage migrant workers in Qatar in 2013, it triggered an international outcry. Hundreds of thousands of men from some of the poorest corners of the world were toiling in the scorching desert heat to build the infrastructure and stadiums for the 2022 World Cup….