A team of researchers – led by University College Cork’s Conor McCarthy – found that the impact of high-profile international football tournaments on the environment is getting worse, not better, despite commitments to ‘zero emissions’ strategies.
The findings came from a 34 year study which involved 895 football matches.
It was conducted from the Italia 90 World Cup finals in Italy through to the 2024 qualifiers for the next European Championships.
Critically, the findings were published as FIFA, world football’s governing body, made the controversial decision to allocate the 2034 World Cup finals to Saudi Arabia – and with the 2026 World Cup finals set to be spread over three countries, the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The 2030 FIFA World Cup finals will be jointly hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco – the first time the tournament has ever been staged in North Africa.
The study found that, despite a greater awareness of emissions and global warming, not to mention the roll-out of ‘cleaner’ technologies, the impact of global football on the environment is increasing rather than decreasing.
Mr McCarthy is an economics and commerce graduate from UCC – but is also a professional footballer with Barnsley in England.
“These findings will hopefully give organisations such as FIFA and UEFA food for thought in terms of how they organise their tournaments. Hosting group stages in single cities or regions could drastically cut the carbon emissions caused by the World Cup and Euros,” he said.
“We need only look at how the Champions League was concluded in the middle of the pandemic lockdown of 2020 for an example of how single-city settings can be used to host tournaments.
“We believe sporting bodies need to reconsider their policy of multi-nation hosts and focus on more centralised locations for World Cups and Euros. In the meantime, while the decision has already been made on holding the 2026 World Cup across Canada, the US, and Mexico, more considered scheduling of games can reduce the tournament’s significant carbon emissions.”
Critically, the study found that while global football bosses are aware of their environmental responsibilities, the decisions that have been taken over the past 34 years have actually proved counterproductive in many cases.
In particular, FIFA and UEFA decisions to co-host tournaments across multiple different countries has had a significantly negative impact.
It has caused participating nations’ teams to travel further distances to for matches, leading to higher emissions.
The study shows that the decisions around the scheduling of matches is also imposing greater travel demands on teams.
It focused on estimating the carbon dioxide emissions caused by the movement of teams, coaches, and other staff members.
The study involved over 16,000 individuals and looked at both international travel to the host country and internal travel between stadiums during the tournaments.
Researchers assumed all travel was done by air for consistency.
They then estimated the carbon dioxide emissions based on standard emissions data per passenger-kilometre, considering improvements in airplane fuel efficiency over time.
Researchers pointed out that the study’s estimates are conservative as they did not include fan travel or additional logistics like equipment transport – all of which would have significantly added to the emissions impact.
Unsurprisingly, the study found that tournaments hosted in geographically large countries like Brazil, which hosted the 2014 World Cup, or spread across multiple locations, such as the 2020 UEFA European Championship generated significantly higher emissions.
The data showed that tournaments held in locations further from Western Europe (Korea, Japan, South Africa and United States of America) and those held in larger countries (Russia, Brazil) or across the European continent, require greater travel by qualifying teams and higher travel emissions.
Ironically, the tournament with the lowest internal emissions was the 2022 World Cup in Qatar due to its compact nature where all stadiums were close to each other – with the decision to award Qatar the world cup one of the most criticised in FIFA history.
Researchers were also able to compare tournaments held within the same country, with France hosting the World Cup in 1998 and then the Euros in 2016.
When only internal travel is examined, carbon dioxide emissions at the 2016 Euros were found to be higher than the 1998 World Cup despite the fact that an identical number of competing countries (24).
“This evidence suggests while air travel is becoming more environmentally friendly, gains are eroded by increasing numbers of players, staff and countries competing, even in Western European hosts,” the study explained.
“The increased mean and median travel distance in France during the 2016 competition, when compared to 1998, demonstrates that teams are required to travel further distances during the tournaments’ rounds.”
The study, ‘Emissions from Air Travel at Major Football Tournaments’ is published in the European Sport Management Monthly.