Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-06-13
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Lionel Pabion, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Rennes 2
Competition after competition, the Football World Cup seems increasingly polluting and ever more greenhouse gas-emitting. But is this inevitable? History shows us that the planet can vibrate for the round ball without excessive pollution.
The Football World Cup is a worldwide sporting event that has hardly any equivalents. The competition has gradually become a gigantic economic and media issue. In 2022, the final was followed by nearly one and a half billion spectators.
Sport is thus a highly sought-after soft power tool. The presentation by the FIFA president of a“price of peace”Donald Trump in December 2025 is a striking example. These political exploitations are often denounced, and the question of a possible boycott of the competition regularly arises.
On the other hand, the ecological issue is often less highlighted than the political and social challenges. However, the environmental footprint of such an event is far from negligible.
A colossal carbon footprint
FIFA itself believes that the 2022 competition in Qatar hasgenerated more than 3.8 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂e), of which 50% is due to air transport, that is more than the annual carbon footprint of a French urban area of 400,000 inhabitants such as Rennes.
This figure could skyrocket for the North American edition due to the many flights between the stadiums of the three host countries (United States, Canada, Mexico). The think tank New Weather Institute predicts afootprint of more than 9 million tCO₂e, which would be a record.
Few new stadiums were built for the occasion. On the other hand, air transport, poorly optimized, will make up more than three quarters of the projected emissions, with acarbon footprint close to the total emissions of the World Cups organized in the 2000s.
An environmental issue taken little seriously
In fact, international sports actors have also become environmental actors. The major federations, faced with ecological challenges, have provided various responses, with more or less sincere commitment. The International Olympic Committee, well aware of the problem, launched in the 1990s a“Agenda 21”, that is to say a plan aimed at reducing impacts on the planet for the coming century. The environmental issue has beenerected as one of the pillars of the Olympic Charter, even if the concrete evolutions of the Games model remain limited.
By comparison, FIFA seems remarkably uninvolved in addressing ecological issues. Its political choices even appear to go against the current. The latest editions have been awarded to countries that stand out neither for their environmental ambition nor for their defense of democracy, namely Russia, Qatar, and then Donald Trump’s United States (where three-quarters of the matches of this edition will be held).
Then, the format of the competition was expanded. Forty-eight teams will participate, compared to 32 nations previously, which generates an additional footprint due to the multiplication of matches and therefore travel, in cities as distant as Vancouver, Boston, or Mexico. The Czech team will, for example, have to travelmore than 4,500 kilometers by planeto play its three qualifying matches.
A speech tinged with “greenwashing”
FIFA’s discourse on sustainability thus appears as an operation ofgreenwashing. The bulk of the carbon footprint comes from air transport, which should be reduced to seriously address the problem. On the contrary, the Federation seeks to continuously grow its competition and related revenues. Essentially cosmetic measures serve as a smokescreen, such as an attention paid to reduction and towaste recyclingor the implementation of awareness campaigns.
FIFA announces its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040. However, since the 2000s, the carbon footprint of the world championships has only been increasing. The allocation of upcoming competitions also does not seem compatible with this objective. In 2030, the tournament, organized in three countries (Spain, Portugal, and Morocco), will generate significant air traffic. In Saudi Arabia, for 2034, the necessary construction of new stadiums will worsen the carbon footprint.
Compensation mechanisms with questionable effectiveness, such as planting artificial forests or purchasing carbon credits, will serve as communication tools around a “net zero” claim without actually reducing the environmental impact.
A recent gigantism
The use of history, however, allows us to remember that, for a long time, international football was energy-efficient, which did not prevent the spectacle. Before World War II, stadiums were few and rudimentary.
The two editions of the World Cup held in France, in 1938 and 1998, show the entire distance separating modern football from its origins over a span of fifty years. The rudimentary stadium of Colombes, with only 20,000 seated and covered places out of 60,000, contrasts with the Stade de France built for the occasion, its 80,000 places, its 180,000 cubic meters of concrete, and its 32,000 tons of steel.
The stadiums in Dallas, with its 90,000 seats, or the one in Los Angeles, inaugurated in 2020 with a huge parking lot, both used for the 2026 edition, seem emblematic of this endless growth.
This gigantism of stadiums and the large number of spectators is nevertheless not synonymous with popular access to the competition. On the contrary, controversy is raging concerning theticket prices, which are reaching record levels, prohibiting the event to a large part of the population, including locals, making access to the competition increasingly unequal. This commercial logic is also found in the organization of shows around the matches.
Excessive rejoicing
Theconcertbringing together Shakira, Madonna, and the group BTS, announced for the 2026 final, has sparked criticism aboutthe extension of halftime for media reasons at the expense of sporting logic.
But this logic of commercial entertainment has taken different forms. Television broadcasting itself is not inherent to the World Cup. Live broadcasting was introduced only in the 1960s. In 1966, the matches were filmed by fewer than ten cameras. Color images only arrived for the 1970 edition, marking the beginning of a technological expansion that has continued ever since.
The simple images did not prevent football fans from enjoying the spectacle, in front of their televisions, on the radio, or in the press, while stadiums were much more accessible and popular places. The “Miracle of Bern” in 1954, when the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) unexpectedly won the cup, gave rise to enormous celebrations and played an important cultural role in a Germany caught in the Cold War. In 1974, Franz Beckenbauer and Johann Cruyff faced each other in a final won at home by the FRG, which again led to huge displays of joy.
When the French team traveled by boat
Above all, the growth of transport flows, responsible for the majority of the environmental footprint, has long remained limited. To go play in Montevideo (Uruguay) in 1930, the French teamspends two weeks on a liner with the Belgian and Romanian teams. Most of the audience present in the stadiums lived locally.
The rise of air transport dates only from the 1960s, which leads to an ever more advanced globalization of sports tourism, reaching very high levels: three million spectators for thirty days of competition, in 2022.
This is not about fantasizing a return to the past. Recent history, however, reminds us that thesobriety is not contradictory with the sporting spectacle.
Real avenues for change would have a direct impact: a return to a tighter schedule and a reduction in the number of matches, concentration of the competition on a few already existing and close stadiums, opening the stadiums to a local and more popular audience, organizing fan zones in each country to reconcile collective ritual and reduce travel.
As several matches of the 2026 World Cup will take place during intense heat, it is urgent to reinvent a sports model that truly takes the immense environmental challenge seriously.
Lionel Pabion does not work for, advise, own shares in, or receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliations than his research institution.
–ref. Is a Green World Cup possible? –https://theconversation.com/is-a-green-world-cup-possible-284991