Flying high: How European football clubs are exploiting fans and the environment

Gap in elite football between what clubs say and do

English club Tottenham Hotspur is a signatory of the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework and recently achieved ISO 20121, which is an important international standard for sustainable event management. Yet, the club travelled further than any other member of the putative ESL this summer with visits to Japan and South Korea.

This contradiction of clubs travelling around the world in preseason has drawn criticism from environmental campaign groups, such as the Cool Down Sport for Climate Action Network. 

“There is a growing gap in elite football between what clubs say they are going to do to tackle the climate crisis and their actions. When it comes to preseason friendlies, this gap is a chasm,” said the Network’s Freddie Daley, who is an academic at the University of Sussex.

“European giants flying vast distances by plane to play preseason friendlies, in shirts emblazoned with the logos of high-carbon companies, puts pressure on both players and the planet. In a carbon-constrained world, where extreme heat and floods are already pulling apart football’s infrastructures, the unerring drive for expansion must be reassessed.” 

“Within football and beyond it, actions speak louder than words. If elite clubs are serious about protecting their players, fans and the future of football, they need to say less and do more.”

Spurs told Play the Game that it aims to travel as sustainably as possible, saying: 

“This includes minimising air travel, with team officials and delegates travelling on the team plane. During the season, the team will travel by coach for all distances under 2.5 hours, whereby player physical optimisation and performance is not compromised as a result.” 

The club said it measures travel emissions to try and reduce emissions and works with Destination Sport Travel to offset emissions “where possible” by buying carbon credits verified by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Play the Game asked Spurs how many people travelled with the club for overseas friendlies but did not get a reply.

A long history of preseason pollution

The carbon footprint being blazed across the planet by the proposed ESL clubs is not new. Research for Play the Game identified 653 preseason games played by the 12 ESL clubs between 2014 and 2023. 412 team involvements (63 per cent) were played overseas. 

Most of this preseason travelling over the past decade has been outside of Europe, which creates a significantly larger footprint as it involves air travel. Out of 412 overseas games, 262 were played in Asia or North America, which is 40 per cent of all preseason games.

Most games in North America took place in the US where Real Madrid and Manchester United each played 24 games. That represents 56 and 45 per cent of each club’s respective preseason matches, as the two sides took part in money-spinning games aimed at growing their commercial revenue.

The organisers of the proposed ESL told Play the Game that they did not have any policies about offsetting their potential member clubs’ extensive travel in preseason.

When these clubs did play games at home, their opponents often travelled from overseas. Just 26 per cent of the preseason games played by ESL clubs over the last decade were at home and against clubs from their own country. Manchester City and Barcelona have played just seven and eight games respectively at home against British and Spanish clubs in the last decade.

In half of the last 10 preseasons, Real Madrid have not even played a game in Spain and only once in that decade has the club played another Spanish team. In 2020, COVID-19 decimated preseason arrangements and Real’s sole preseason match was against Madrid neighbours Getafe.

Preseason environmental damage

Many clubs play games in other clubs in Europe as part of training camps, whereas games further afield are invariably part of commercial arrangements aimed at increasing commercial revenue and engaging with overseas fans.

This has produced a plethora of preseason competitions that have little meaning outside of corporate boxes. Who remembers the Casinò Lugano Cup, the Chevrolet Cup or the Coupang Play Series? Yet these competitions have attracted some of Europe’s biggest clubs.

“Teams that take off around the world on big-polluting preseason tours are threatening the safety of the players and communities they ultimately rely on,” Peter Crisp from the campaign group Fossil Free Football told Play the Game.  

“They are disregarding both the grave welfare concerns of overstretched players and the threat that is already posed by fossil-fuelled extreme weather.”

“The dangerous ‘business as usual’ mentality and endless push for more matches must give way to governance that is realistic about the obvious physical limits of players and the planet. It is time for top clubs to show real leadership by cutting their pollution to safeguard the future of football,” said Crisp.