Gianni Infantino given wake-up call as alarming stats show FIFA driving climate crisis Football has been given a wake-up call over its lack of action on climate change after a major new report revealed the sport had the same carbon dioxide emissions as Austria.
The report makes two main practical demands to the football industry, beyond the obvious of reducing emissions, raising awareness and collecting more data: to ban polluting sponsors and to redesign the football calendar to make it more regional.
“Despite its mass appeal and global audience, football is struggling to get a handle on its true environmental impact due to patchy data and the exclusion of key areas of its carbon footprint, especially sponsored emissions,” lead researcher Dr Stuart Parkinson said.
Remarkably, of the huge headline figure of CO2 emissions, over 75 per cent is due to sponsorship deals with high-carbon companies, like FIFA’s with Aramco, UEFA’s with Qatar Airways and clubs like Paris Saint-Germain (Qatar Airways), Real Madrid and Arsenal (Emirates) and Manchester City (Etihad).
It estimates that the global football industry pollutes between 64 and 66million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent per year, which is equal to around the whole of Austria, or to burning 150million barrels of oil.
