What A Carbon-Neutral World Cup Might Actually Look Like

The 2022 Qatar World Cup promoted itself as carbon neutral, with recyclable stadiums and carbon offsetting.

But on June 6, the Swiss Advertising Authority announced it had found that FIFA’s claims that Qatar 2022 was carbon neutral had misled the public and breached Swiss federal law.

This decision was based on a report by Carbon Market Watch that found FIFA massively underestimated the emissions that come from stadium construction, as well as the shuttle flights between Doha and other nearby air hubs.

Long before the report came out, many were skeptical of Qatar’s claims, with Professor Simon Chadwick telling the Guardian that “you’ve had a 12-year period during which I sense there hasn’t been carbon offsetting and mitigation of environmental damage.”

But if Qatar 2022 wasn’t carbon neutral, what might a soccer tournament aimed at minimizing carbon emissions look like?

Frank Huisingh from Fossil Free Football says there are three things that can help make major tournaments better for the environment: using existing infrastructure, making it easy for fans to travel between venues using public transport, and selling more tickets to locals rather than away fans.

The upcoming United 2026 World Cup in North America does well on the first of these measures, but the huge distances between the venues will lead to a lot of pollution from travel. Huisingh says it might have been a better idea to have a more compact World Cup in just one American region such as the U.S. East Coast.

He also says “one thing that has a big impact on emissions is how many away fans you accept,” suggesting that selling 80% of tickets to locals, presumably with better measures in place to prevent re-selling, would avoid a lot of emissions too.

Outside of the World Cup, Huisingh says FIFA and UEFA need to do more in terms of scheduling to reduce soccer’s climate impact, saying there’s “almost zero action being taken to encourage fans to go by public transport and make sure it is possible for fans to go by public transport, by train or by bus.”

Fossil Free Football recently published an article showing how emissions from travel to the recent UEFA Champions League final could have been cut dramatically if it had been hosted in Paris and fans had been able to take the train rather than flying. Announcing schedules further in advance and making early stages of European competitions based around regional groups could also lower emissions.

But the main thing, according to Huisingh, that soccer can do to reduce carbon emissions, is to stop giving a platform to big polluters.

He points to efforts in the past to stop tobacco companies sponsoring soccer, saying that in the 1960s and 1970s, Dutch soccer legend Johann Cruyff was the face of cigarette advertising campaigns before later becoming an anti-smoking campaigner, sucking on a lollipop in the dugouts rather than a cigarette.

More recently, Premier League clubs have decided to ban gambling products from sponsoring the fronts of their shirts from the 2026/27 season onwards, and the British Museum has decided to end its relationship with BP.

Huisingh says how people can see the links between new products and companies that try to prevent serious climate action and start to understand “how unfair it is that (Erling) Haaland has to run around in an Etihad shirt.” He asks, “Do we really want to look back at the 2020s and see the decade when everyone really understood how bad climate change is… and see legends of that generation running around in shirts advertising polluting products.”

Even if Qatar 2022 had been carbon neutral, it still gave a platform to its sponsors Qatar Airways and Qatar Energy.

A World Cup that’s truly trying to reduce its carbon footprint would not only have to think about reducing stadium construction and travel, but also consider the brands that sponsor the tournament.