Fifa World Cup 2030: a global tournament on 3 continents sparks concerns over climate
A joint bid from Europe, Africa, South America worries environmentalists, who say football’s governing body has a ‘moral responsibility’
The 2030 Fifa World Cup will send dozens of football teams and hordes of fans criss-crossing the globe for matches on three continents, sparking alarm over the environmental cost.
An announcement on the 2030 and 2034 World Cups will be made on Wednesday, with expectations of a dramatic expansion of geographic footprint – and with that planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
While Saudi Arabia is the lone candidate for 2034, Morocco, Spain and Portugal have formed a joint bid for the 2030 tournament, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay each also set to host a match.
Guillaume Gouze, of the Centre of Sports Law and Economics at the University of Limoges, said Fifa had a “moral responsibility” to integrate climate concerns into its tournament plans.
Instead, he said, it had proposed World Cups that are an “ecological aberration”.
Benja Faecks of the NGO Carbon Market Watch, which evaluates climate promises of major events, said that, in general, attempts at greenwashing in sport – or “sportswashing” – are harder than they used to be, with academics and campaigners holding organisations to account.