TUCSON, Ariz. — The Arizona State Sun Devils gathered at midfield, an enormous mass of maroon and gold celebrating Saturday’s 49-7 win against rival Arizona at Arizona Stadium. Suddenly, Cam Skattebo broke from the pack, lifting the Territorial Cup in his right hand and charging for the stands where Arizona State fans awaited.

Skattebo had just rushed for 177 yards and three touchdowns, lifting No. 16 Arizona State to its 10th win and a place in the Big 12 Championship Game, an improbable tale for both the bruising running back and the program he represents.

Heisman Trophy ballots are sent out on Monday. Like his team, Skattebo began the season as an incredible long shot. Also, like his team, Skattebo has shown he belongs.

“He has to be one of the best backs in yards from scrimmage in all of Power 4 football,’’ Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham said outside the locker room. “How are there many players more impactful than him and what he’s done for this program, picked dead last to playing potentially in the conference championship?”

Colorado two-way star Travis Hunter is the favorite for this season’s Heisman, given to college football’s top player. Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty, Miami quarterback Cam Ward and Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel are strong contenders. The top four finalists travel to New York for the Dec. 14 Heisman ceremony.

Skattebo has never been to the Big Apple. Has it entered his mind?

“I never thought I would be (in this position),” he said.

Does he think he deserves to go?

“Potentially,’’ Skattebo said. “We got more work to do. But, yeah.”

Man of the hour. pic.twitter.com/rSfIoUAH8v

— Doug Haller (@DougHaller) December 1, 2024

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As Skattebo held up the Territorial Cup, the oldest rivalry trophy in the sport, his teammates gathered around him in the corner of Arizona Stadium. Dillingham told officials to get the players already in the locker room to return to the field. Once they did, Dillingham and the Sun Devils sang the school fight song. After the last word, they took the celebration inside.

Skattebo stayed on the field.

He looked down the length of the field and noticed Arizona State fans lined the entire way, from one end zone to the other. Skattebo started making his way down, signing autographs, posing for photos and living in the moment. In the locker room, his coaches and teammates celebrated. Skattebo wasn’t concerned.

“I see those guys every day,’’ he said. “We’ll have our fun later.”

Elite players in college football enter the sport in high regard. Hunter was a five-star high school prospect, the top player in his class. Jeanty was a four-star running back. Coming out of Rio Linda High School in California, Skattebo barely registered, a running back who played like a linebacker.

Skattebo signed with Sacramento State, the only school that offered him a full scholarship. After two seasons, he transferred to Arizona State. In his first season with the Sun Devils, he rushed for 783 yards and nine touchdowns behind a banged-up line. This season, slimmed down and determined, he’s been among the country’s most improved players, the only back who entered Saturday with 1,000-plus rushing yards and 350-plus receiving yards.

“It’s funny because those of us who have watched him grow up — and I talked to his brother last week about it, too — it looks exactly the same,” Skattebo’s high school coach, Jack Garceau, said by phone during Saturday’s game. “It was this way in high school. This way at Sac State. And now it looks this way at ASU. Nothing’s changed. He’s just gotten better and better and better.”

Near the stands, Skattebo grabbed a maroon hat and scribbled “Skatt” in black ink. He shuffled to his left, slapping fives, stopping at a blonde-haired boy who asked him to sign his maroon jersey. Skattebo shifted the boy to the side so he could use his shoulder for support. A security guard informed co-workers that Skattebo was still on the field. A photographer informed the running back that his family waited not far down the line.

Arizona State achieved bowl eligibility after a Nov. 2 win at Oklahoma State. After that game, Dillingham said the Sun Devils (10-2, 7-2 Big 12) were playing with house money. Quarterback Sam Leavitt said that’s when the expanded College Football Playoff first popped into his mind.

“Why not us?” he thought.

Arizona State hasn’t lost since, winners of five in a row, each win bigger than the last, the most memorable march this program has experienced since the Sun Devils went 11-1 during the 1996 season. Leavitt has developed quicker than expected. The offensive line has stayed healthy. The defense has made plays.

“They still surprise me,” Dillingham said. “They’re just a unique, goofy group of misfits that somehow came together and are accomplishing things that are special.”

Skattebo has been the engine. Earlier on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” Nick Saban called him his favorite player in college football.

“This guy, he’s rugged,” the former Alabama coach said. “Tough. I just love a great competitor. He’s all that.”

Skattebo grabbed a cell phone. He held it out as far as his right arm could extend, making sure the fans behind him were in the frame and smiled. He posed in the middle of nine Arizona State cheerleaders. Twenty minutes after the game, Skattebo hugged his family. After a brief conversation, he turned and jogged to the locker room. Fans serenaded him along the way.

“Skatt for Heis-man!”

“Skatt for Heis-man!”

(Photo of Cam Skattebo (left) and Kenny Dillingham: Christopher Hook / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

A report commissioned by FIFA has concluded football’s governing body “has a responsibility” to compensate workers who suffered during the hosting of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

The long-awaited report from FIFA’s sub-committee on human rights and social responsibility — finally published on Friday at midnight Central European Time — says the governing body “took a number of steps to seek to meet its responsibility to respect human rights” as part of the delivery of the tournament two years ago.

However, FIFA failed to meet one of the report’s primary recommendations of using the Qatar Legacy Fund to remedy workers impacted by human rights abuses, instead announcing they would donate the money to several other programmes which will not directly compensate workers in Qatar.

FIFA insisted the study was not “a legal assessment of the obligation to remedy”.

The independent study, commissioned by the sub-committee and developed by the business and human rights advisory firm ‘Human Level’, notes that “a number of severe human rights impacts did ultimately occur in Qatar from 2010 through 2022” for a number of workers connected to the tournament.

This included “deaths, injuries and illnesses; wages not being paid for months on end; and significant debt faced by workers and their families reimbursing the fees they paid to obtain jobs in Qatar.”

While acknowledging that “the main responsibility to rectify such shortcomings lies with the direct employers of these workers as well as with the Qatari government” the sub-committee “endorses the view expressed in the Human Level Study that FIFA too has a responsibility to take additional measures to contribute to the provision of remedy to these workers.”

World Cup organizers have put the number of deaths directly linked to the delivery of the tournament at 40. Human rights groups have long estimated that thousands of workers died.

A FIFA spokesperson said: “All reports and recommendations were considered during a comprehensive review by the FIFA administration and relevant bodies. While all recommendations could not be met, practical and impactful elements were retained.

“It should be noted that the study did not specifically constitute a legal assessment of the obligation to remedy.”

The report recommends that FIFA should use its Qatar Legacy Fund to remedy workers impacted or, for those who died, their family members.

The sub-committee advises them to “act upon the intention, as indicated by FIFA in a press release of 19 November 2022, to dedicate the FIFA World Cup 2022 Legacy Fund in full or in part to further strengthen the competition’s legacy for migrant workers.”

However, two days before the report’s publication FIFA announced the $50million fund would instead be used on a series of social programmes globally in collaboration with Qatar and three organisations, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, instead.

A FIFA spokesperson said: “The creation of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Legacy Fund was unanimously endorsed by the FIFA Council following a proposal made by the FIFA governance, audit and compliance committee.

“A Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund was established in Qatar in 2018 and FIFA believes the new Legacy Fund, endorsed by recognised international agencies, is a pragmatic and transparent initiative that will encompass social programmes to help people most in need across the world.”

Following the award of the World Cup to Qatar, FIFA has added human rights as a consideration as part of its bidding process for tournaments.

On Friday FIFA’s evaluation report for Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid declared the risk assessment for human rights to be “medium”.

A vote on the hosts for the tournament — where the Saudi bid has no rival — will take place at the FIFA Congress on December 11.

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(Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)

FIFA, the world governing body for football, released on Friday night its evaluation report for Saudi Arabia’s bid to host the men’s World Cup in 2034, awarding the nation a higher score for bidding requirements than it granted the successful Canadian, American and Mexican joint bid for the 2026 edition, while declaring the risk assessment for human rights to be “medium”.

FIFA also claim in their report that there is “good potential” for the competition to act as a “catalyst” for reforms within Saudi Arabia, saying it will “contribute to positive human rights outcomes”. Amnesty International described FIFA’s observations as “an astonishing whitewash” of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

The bid report also declared the bid by oil-rich Saudi to have demonstrated a “good commitment to sustainability” while FIFA acknowledges that the Saudi bid presents an “elevated risk” in terms of timing due to the climate of the country.

FIFA, which ordinarily holds men’s World Cups in June and July, says the bidder did not stipulate a proposed window for the tournament but pledged to collaborate to “ensure the tournament’s success”, implying we may see a repeat of the 2022 edition in Qatar which was shifted to the winter months to allow for the safety of participants and supporters.

FIFA ranks its World Cup bids out of five and awarded the Saudi bid a score of 4.2, higher than the so-called United bid for 2026, which was rated 4.0. For the Women’s World Cup in 2027, Brazil’s successful bid was ranked 4.0, while the defeated joint bid of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany was given a score of 3.7.

FIFA released its report in an email to media at 12.33am Central European Time on Saturday morning. Almost immediately, reports emerged in Middle Eastern English-speaking outlets such as the Saudi Gazette, declaring that the Saudi bid had received the highest ever score from FIFA when bidding for a World Cup.

The Saudi bid for the 2034 World Cup had already been considered a nigh-on inevitability because it was the only bidder for the tournament. This outcome developed after FIFA announced a mega-edition bid for the 2030 World Cup, which would be hosted across three continents (Africa, Europe and South America) and six countries (Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay).

This ruled those three continents out of bidding for the following World Cup in 2034, while the joint U.S., Canada and Mexico event for 2026 ruled out a return to North America due to FIFA’s principle of confederation rotation.

This left the Saudis with a clear run in the absence of a rival from elsewhere in Asia or Oceania, subject to a vote of member nations at the FIFA Congress on December 11, which was widely seen as a formality.

FIFA’s report say their evaluation “consulted various sources, including the bidder’s human rights strategy, the mandated context assessment, as well as direct commitments from the host country and host cities, together with all contractual hosting documents, all of which notably contain provisions relating to respecting human rights in connection with the competition”.

However, The Athletic revealed last month how 11 organisations — including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, a Saudi Arabian diaspora organisation and human rights groups specialising in the Gulf region — raised major concerns about the credibility of a report for FIFA entitled “Independent Context Assessment Prepared for the Saudi Arabian Football Federation in relation to the FIFA World Cup 2034”.

The independent context assessment, produced by the Saudi arm of global law firm Clifford Chance, excluded a large number of internationally recognised human rights from its assessment, saying this was because “either Saudi Arabia has not ratified the relevant treaties or because the Saudi Football Federation did not recognise them as ‘applying’ to the assessment”.

This meant it avoided delving into matters many would consider pertinent to Saudi, notably relating to freedom of expression, association and assembly, as well as LGBTQI+ discrimination, the prohibition of trade unions, the right to freedom of religion and forced evictions.

The report said that the scope of its assessment was “determined by the Saudi Arabian Football Federation in agreement with FIFA”, suggesting that FIFA itself approved the omissions. Both the Saudi Football Association and FIFA did not respond when approached by The Athletic at the time.

In a press release by the rights groups, they claimed that “Saudi Arabia’s already dire human rights record has deteriorated under the de facto rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman” and cited a “soaring number of mass executions, torture, enforced disappearance, severe restrictions on free expression, repression of women’s rights under the male guardianship system, LGBTI+ discrimination, and the killing of hundreds of migrants at the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border”.

“As expected, FIFA’s evaluation of Saudi Arabia’s World Cup bid is an astonishing whitewash of the country’s atrocious human rights record,” added Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s head of labour rights and sport. “There are no meaningful commitments that will prevent workers from being exploited, residents from being evicted or activists from being arrested.

“By ignoring the clear evidence of severe human rights risks, FIFA is likely to bear much responsibility for the violations and abuses that will take place over the coming decade. Fundamental human rights reforms are urgently required in Saudi Arabia, or the 2034 World Cup will be inevitably tarnished by exploitation, discrimination and repression.”

The FIFA bid evaluation, published on Saturday morning, leans heavily on the Clifford Chance report. It does not make any references to the terms “LGBTQI+”, “sexuality” or “sexual orientation”, while the only mention of women’s rights within Saudi Arabia can be found with references to the growth of the women’s game and women’s participation in football within Saudi.

The bid evaluation says that Saudi “has made significant strides in developing interest and grassroots participation for women and girls, and at the elite level”.

A model of Jeddah Central Development at the Saudi 2034 World Cup exhibition in Riyadh (Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)

The bid, which ranks by low, medium or high, also gives a medium level of risk to stadiums, transport and accommodation, as well as the previously explained “event timing”. Stadiums are awarded a 4.1 rating out of five, despite eight of the proposed 15 stadiums for the tournament being new-builds. FIFA said this presented a “slightly elevated” risk profile.

The bid evaluation says the Saudi bid submitted commitments from the government to “respect, protect and fulfil internationally recognised human rights in connection with the competition, including in the areas of safety and security, labour rights (in particular fundamental labour rights and those of migrant workers), rights of children, gender equality and non-discrimination, as well as freedom of expression (including press freedom)”.

FIFA says the Saudis have committed to “equitable wages”, as well as “decent working and living conditions for all individuals involved in the preparation and delivery of the FIFA World Cup, including through the establishment of a workers’ welfare system to monitor compliance with labour rights standards for tournament-related workers”.

They also say the Saudis will “engage with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in relation to its commitment to upholding international labour standards in all activities associated with the competition.” The treatment and rights of migrant workers were among the biggest talking points before and during the 2022 World Cup, staged in neighbouring Qatar.

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FIFA simultaneously released its report for the sole bid for the 2030 World Cup, which will be held in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. The 2030 bid, which does not have a rival, will also be voted on by the member nations on December 11. It also received a rating of 4.2 out of 5, with the only medium risk factors judged to be stadiums, accommodation, transport, and the legal framework of the tournament.

The “sustainable event management” and “environmental protection” of a competition held across three continents was judged to be a “low” risk.

The report says that the “environmental impact assessment and initial carbon footprint assessment by the bidder, together with the commitments, objectives and mitigation actions outlined, provide a good foundation for the development of effective strategies towards managing the negative impacts of the tournament on the planet and protecting the environment”.

(Top photo: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg via Getty Images)