FIFA World Cup to generate unprecedented cash and CO2

LAUSANNE: The biggest and most lucrative ever World Cup this summer will also set a record for the most-polluting sporting event in history, environmental experts say. “Unlike the case of the Olympic Games, where the carbon footprints have been reducing over the last several editions, this is totally opposite in the case of FIFA men’s World Cup,” David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne (Unil), told AFP. The summer’s World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams for the first time. It will be played in three countries — Mexico, Canada and the United States — also for the first time. It will generate unprecedented revenue but, Unil’s research shows, “produce the largest carbon footprint in the history of international sport”. Unil’s calculations for CO2-generated emissions range from five to nine million tonnes compared to “around 1.75 million tonnes” for the 2024 Paris Olympics, Gogishvili continued. That figure far surpasses the estimated 2.17 million tonnes of CO2 generated by Russia in 2018, in a far-flung World Cup that involved 40 fewer matches, and the 3.17m tonnes from Qatar in 2022, in a highly compact event criticised for its hastily constructed, oversized and air-conditioned stadiums. All 16 venues for this summer, from the “smallest” in Toronto with 45,000 seats, to the largest in Arlin­gton, Texas, which holds 94,000 sea­ts, already existed when the Gam­es were awarded, a point highlighted in 2018 by the “United 2026” bid. The main issue is the vast span between stadiums. The distance between Miami and Vancouver is more than 4,500 kilometres. That will increase the biggest source of CO2 emissions for international events: air travel for teams, officials, media, and especially the “more than five million fans” targeted by FIFA. Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, will travel 5,040 kilometres to play group games in Toronto, Los Angeles and finally Seattle. ‘FIFA’s environment deanial’ FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who proclaimed his “dete