It is not surprising that sponsorship is noticeable. Elite soccer teams and sports management agencies have begun a favorable sponsorship with high carbon sectors, including petroleum and gas companies, airlines, automakers and fast food chains.
Most confused, the FIFA around the world has been recently I negotiated the transaction With Aramco, the world’s largest oil and gas company headquartered in Saudi Arabia. The contract included exposure to the next men’s World Cup finals in North America in 2026, and the hosting of the 2034 World Cup final was awarded to Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the British Football Association is sponsored by Emirates, an Airline -based airline. This contract includes the world’s oldest national soccer competition, the Men’s FA Cup. Then there is the current champion of the Manchester City English Premier League.
Farther away from Europe, we can see that Real Madrid, the current European champion, is sponsored by Emirates. The largest club sponsorship that we could identify Our research Paris St Germain’s connection with Qatar Airlines is about $ 80 million every year. The appropriate banking section Paris ST Germain is now a French champion.
elite
This high carbon financing on football helps to unstable climate system and to further normalize behaviors and lifestyles that threaten our society and natural ecosystem. Efforts to suppress air trips, gas processing SUVs, animal product consumption and other high pollution activities are weakened by this ‘colonization’ in the cultural space.
Our new research also looked at other major sources in football. This data has been derived from a variety of sources, including a soccer club and a governing agency (where it is)
There was a lot of data gaps and poor quality, but we could find that the other two sources were especially important. Especially fan trips by car and plane; In particular, the construction of a new stadium for major tournaments.
we Estimated In the men’s elite league, such as the English Premier League, the average match led to about 1,700 TCO2E. About half of this was mainly due to fan trips by car. For example, in the UEFA Champions League, this is a 50 % increase in the aerial travel and a semi -final or final increase.
In the Men’s World Cup final, one match was estimated to be the cause between 44,000 TCO2E and 72,000 TCO2E. This is between 26 and 42 times the domestic elite game. The output of the World Cup is the same as driving 51,500 British cars for a year.
Competitiveness
An important factor in this calculation is a method of assigning emissions related to the construction of a new stadium for tournaments. We claim that most of the emissions from construction should be assigned to the World Cup, so the emissions per game should be toward higher ends of the above range.
In contrast, some greenhouse gas emission accounting methodologies allow these emissions to be assigned to the future (world cups) played in this stadium. However, many of these new places are rarely used in most countries because there is little demand for 40,000 stadiums, which are the minimum size defined in the World Cup finals.
We, we Estimated More than 93 % of them showed that climate behavior should be concentrated due to elite football at the state or club level.
According to our analysis, the top focus on climate behavior in the soccer sector should be in a quick stage of sponsorship transactions with fossil fuel companies, airlines and other polluted companies. This will be helpful for the important time to provide one of the fastest options to reduce emissions in a wider society where the movement to low carbon behavior is a wider society.
You can also improve ‘beautiful games’. It will no longer be easy to predict the winner of the elite league and cup. Considering the way this favorable sponsoring transaction dominates and firms the world’s best clubs and tournaments, it will have a big advantage in terms of sports competitiveness.
Burnout
The following priority is to reduce the number of international competitions you play to reduce your aviation travel-Player health and welfare, fans’ pockets and climates.
Again, the elite level is the key. There is a male UEFA Champions League This season In the competition, the number of economic growth increased from 125 to 189, up more than 50 %.
one side Next Men’s World Cup Final It will include 104 games that have risen from 64 in 2022. In order to make sense, the tournament is undergoing tournaments, the largest geographical regions in the United States, and Mexico.
The increase in this number must be at least reversed. The focus of the international competition should be to encourage local fans to attend, not thousands of miles away.
When pursuing these changes, there are many advantages to sports. Professional football players are under pressure to play more and more games every season, which leads to burnout.
conversation
Some clubs and rulers have joined the United Nations. Sports for Climate Action FrameworkThis includes half of the emissions by 2030 and the goal of reaching ‘Net Zero’ by 2040. However, using loopholes such as carbon offsets, tissues can avoid significant short -term measures.
There are several initiatives that have begun to turn to the tide of the elite football industry.
More than 100 major female soccer player groups request End of sponsor transactions with FIFA, Top German Club Bayern Munich Fell Qatar Airlines is a shirt patron after a fan protest on human rights issues.
Some clubs like the UK Forest Green Rover We are pioneering low carbon sports. In addition, measures to improve surface public transportation and increase the use of fans have become a function of some soccer tournaments, such as the World Cup Finals and the euro.
Meanwhile, the following initiative pledge and Planetary league Successful fans are encouraging to adopt low -carbon behavior through club -based competitions, and other initiatives Cooling network It is making climate problem permanent features of commentary on the game.
But we need more ambitions to get the ultimate cup of stable climate that sports can have the future. Considering the cultural scope of football, strong behavior in this field can help change the global conversation on climate issues and to prevent the flow of climate disasters, such as happening in Los Angeles.
This author
Dr. Stewart Parkinson is a manager. Scientist for global responsibility (SGR)I have a doctorate in climate science. He is the chief author of the report Dirty tackle: football carbon footprints.
Andrew Simms New Weather Research InstituteCo -founder Incorrect advertising campaignCoordinator Fast conversion allianceThe co -author of the original green New Deal. Follow Bluesky @Andrewsims.bsky.social.
