ROYAL RUMBLE RIYADH: Royal Rumble stadium built in weeks raises questions from human rights groups about working conditions, WWE and Saudi officials unresponsive (Postwrestling.com)
Royal Rumble stadium built in weeks raises questions
from human rights groups about working conditions, WWE and
Saudi officials unresponsive
January 30, 2026
Brandon Thurston Exclusives
Earlier this month, images emerged from Riyadh’s King
Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) showing a stadium-like
venue built atop a government-owned parking lot. The
district itself is a state-backed banking development in
Riyadh, central to Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 ambitions.
As January progressed, more photos and videos appeared
online of the stadium being constructed from scratch in just
a few weeks, giving fans anticipating Saturday’s Royal
Rumble frequent updates on the project.
Michael Cole remarked on the extraordinary speed of the
construction during the opening minutes of this week’s
Monday Night Raw, telling viewers watching worldwide on
Netflix: “Less than a month ago in a parking lot in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia, WWE started building a stadium for this
Saturday’s Royal Rumble.”
While framed as an engineering achievement on WWE’s
broadcast, the phenomenon also raises questions about how
such a project could be delivered so quickly and whether the
conditions under which it was built can be independently
assessed.
To be clear, this report is not claiming that abuses
occurred during the construction of the Royal Rumble venue.
What we tried to answer and could not was whether the
conditions under which it was built can be meaningfully
assessed. Our questions sent to parties that may have
knowledge to speak to that issue went unanswered. Questions
sent to several local government organizations and to WWE
and its parent company, TKO, asking about worker protection
policies and whether any safety incidents occurred during
construction received no response. If we receive any
responses from those parties after publishing, this article
will be updated.
In Saudi Arabia, construction relies heavily on migrant
labor, and, despite recent reforms, worker exploitation in
the industry continues to be documented by international
human rights organizations, including Amnesty International
and the Business & Human Rights Centre. Saudi authorities
have acknowledged the issue in recent years, including
through a National Policy on forced labor launched in
January 2025 by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social
Development, which the government says is intended to
improve workplace safety and align labor practices with
international standards.
When we made human rights organizations aware of the stadium
project related to the Royal Rumble event, they indicated to
POST Wrestling that the rapid timeline alone warrants
scrutiny.
We also contacted a wide range of Saudi government
authorities, foreign embassies, and labor authorities.
Emails were sent to the General Entertainment Authority
(WWE’s main partner in the country), the Public Investment
Fund (the owner of KAFD), the Ministry of Human Resources
and Social Development (HRSD), the Royal Commission for
Riyadh City, Riyadh Municipality (Amanat al-Riyadh), and the
Saudi Embassy in the United States. We contacted the
embassies in Saudi Arabia for Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and
the Philippines, countries with large migrant worker
populations in the kingdom.
The Migrant Workers Office of the Philippine Embassy in
Riyadh responded, saying that it could not answer queries
about labor oversight or worker protection, stating it had
not processed manpower requests for the WWE event and had
received no information from Filipino workers about
involvement in the project.
Amnesty International’s labor rights researcher Ella Knight
explained that in Saudi Arabia, migrant workers, including
those involved with such stadium construction projects,
“continue to be subjected to systemic human rights abuses,
such as wage theft, excessive working hours, appalling
living conditions and hazardous working environments.”
Saudi government says the kafala sponsorship system has been
abolished. Human rights advocates argue the reforms are not
enough.
Like in many countries throughout the world, Saudi Arabia
relies on migrant workers, who leave their home countries
for temporary employment, typically fleeing economic
hardship to fill manual labor and other jobs that local
residents are less likely to sign up for. In the context of
Saudi construction projects, the vast majority of laborers
building roads, stadiums, railways, and skyscrapers are
foreign-born workers.
This labor system has long operated under the kafala
sponsorship system. The Arabic word “kafala” translates
roughly to “guarantee,” or “sponsorship.” The system has
existed since the 1950s in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf
states, closely tying a migrant worker’s legal status, visa,
and residency directly to a specific employer or “sponsor,”
meaning workers often can’t easily change jobs or leave the
country without their employer’s permission, creating what
human rights advocates say is a deep power imbalance that
often leads to exploitation.
ALQST is a Saudi-based independent human rights
organization, with a focus on the treatment of migrant
workers, among other issues. Abdullah Aljuraywi, Monitoring
and Campaigns Officer for ALQST, told us, “Large-scale
construction projects in Saudi Arabia” — like the one that
built the stadium for WWE — “rely heavily on low-wage
migrant workers under the kafala system, who often endure
extremely long hours in unsafe conditions.”
But in June 2025, Saudi Arabia officially abolished the
kafala system as part of wider reforms related to its Vision
2030 economic plan, the same vast plan that WWE and many
other sporting events are connected to. The government
replaced the kafala system with a contract-based employment
model that gives migrant workers greater freedom to change
jobs and travel without employer consent. That change,
however, hasn’t satisfied human rights groups we spoke with.
“Recent reforms of the kafala system do not go far enough,”
Catriona Fraser, a migrant workers researcher for Business &
Human Rights Centre, told us. “Unions and protests are also
banned in the country, curtailing workers’ ability to
protest rights abuse and gain remedy and justice.”
Saudi officials might contend that, along with the abolition
of kafala, they’ve also implemented digital labor contracts
as part of their effort to meet international labor
standards. They argue that enforcement mechanisms have
improved, though independent verification remains a
challenge.
Knight, from Amnesty International, agrees: “Despite changes
in recent years, the system leaves [migrant workers] heavily
dependent on the goodwill of their employers for their legal
status and livelihoods, directly enabling forced labor
practices.”
“Labor conditions [for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia] are
generally very abusive and deeply exploitative and can place
workers’ health and lives at risk,” Nicholas McGeehan said.
McGeehan is a Programme Director for FairSquare, an advocacy
organization that investigates labor and human rights,
particularly in Gulf countries. He added: “The risks are
exacerbated when deadlines — like the one you describe here
— are tight.”
“Workers who demand overdue wages or request better
conditions risk arrest, detention, and even deportation,”
Aljuraywi of ALQST said.
Large construction projects in Saudi Arabia, like the new
stadium built for WWE, being called “Riyadh Season Stadium,“
often rely heavily on smaller subcontractors who hire large
numbers of unskilled migrant laborers from abroad, Aljuraywi
added. “These workers frequently lack proper safety
equipment and clear instructions in a language they can
understand. Smaller subcontractors, often Saudi-owned, and
larger companies overseeing these projects often ‘hide
behind’ these subcontractors, to avoid accountability.”
Fraser, with the Business & Human Rights Centre, said Saudi
Arabia was among the countries with the highest number of
reported migrant worker abuse cases in 2025, with
construction accounting for a large share of those
incidents. Her organization’s database documents
allegations, including wage theft lasting months, deaths at
work, extreme heat exposure, and other issues.
Rights groups say companies must do more due diligence
“The structure of the construction industry in Saudi Arabia
exacerbates the risk of abuse,” Fraser said, citing
extensive subcontracting, pay-when-paid practices — which is
when a contractor only pays workers after it has been paid
itself — and tight deadlines that can drive excessive
working hours and safety risks.
Those dynamics could intensify as Saudi Arabia accelerates
its ambitious economic development ahead of major
international events like the World Cup in 2034. One of the
first migrant worker deaths related to World Cup
construction has already been reported, according to the
Business & Human Rights Centre. In March 2025, Muhammad
Arshad, a migrant laborer from Pakistan working as a foreman
on Aramco Stadium in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, reportedly
fell to his death from the upper level of the stadium.
Rights advocates we contacted say questions raised by the
Royal Rumble venue reflect patterns likely to continue as
the government ramps up major projects. McGeehan of
FairSquare said those questions are particularly relevant
for international business partners that work with the Saudi
government, like WWE. Among the questions we sent to WWE and
TKO, which went unanswered, was whether WWE conducted a risk
assessment, particularly in light of how quickly the stadium
was built and the country’s track record on migrant labor
treatment.
Saudi Arabia’s push to host major sporting events — ranging
from soccer to Formula One racing, to golf, to boxing, and
beyond — is part of the government’s Vision 2030 strategy,
aimed at diversifying the economy and improving the
country’s international image. WWE has been a prominent
participant in that effort since 2018, holding two premium
live events per year in the country under a ten-year deal
worth at least $50 million per event, a one-day payment from
the General Entertainment Authority that exceeds any
publicly reported live gate in pro wrestling history. It’s
not known whether the Royal Rumble — easily the biggest WWE
event to date in the kingdom — carried a higher fee. WWE
also announced plans to bring WrestleMania to Riyadh in
2027, which will be the first time WWE’s biggest annual
event will take place outside of North America.
TKO’s UFC and new boxing venture also have highly profitable
deals with the Saudi government.
Rights groups argue that as Saudi Arabia diversifies its
economy and spends enormously on major sporting events,
international companies, like WWE, should recognize the
human rights risks.
“As the country diversifies its economy and hosts major
sporting events, companies gaining lucrative contracts must
be alert to these heightened risks and conduct effective
human rights due diligence to ensure the rights of migrants
building these projects are respected,” Fraser said.
Labor rights related to migrant workers are among a wider
set of human rights abuses alleged against the Saudi
government. Others include restrictions on free expression,
broad executions of citizens, such as dissenting
journalists, and women’s rights.
