SPORT
International Sports: How To Reduce The Impact on The Plan
I
n a few months time - at least at the time of writing - two major international competitions are set to begin: EURO 2020 and the Tokyo Olympics. These quadrennial tournaments—which both last took place in 2016 and were delayed due to the pandemic—will make for, one would hope, an entertaining summer of sport. It is something that frankly, as a sports fan, I am very much looking forward to. But as the world becomes more attuned to the dangers of excessive travelling and the harm it does to the planet, the exciting summer is a lot less exciting, and significantly more worrying, than it might have been. The consequences of international tournaments on the environment can’t be ignored. Take the UEFA Champions League, for example. 181 fixtures take place throughout the course of a (non-pandemic) Champions League season. 79 teams from 54 30
different countries qualify for the tournament and, assuming one team is always the away team in these games, that means 181 flights across Europe, often by chartered flights, over the course of the 9 month campaign. It goes without saying that this has a significant impact on our planet, with the Jocelyn Timperley’s 2020 article saying that ‘flying is, mile for mile, the most damaging way to travel for the climate’. If 181 short-haul flights (the Champions League only includes teams in Europe) doesn’t seem like much to you, consider the fact that this is one tournament, in one sport, in one of the world’s continents, and this is only in the men’s game. Now consider how many competitions there are. In football alone, there are literally thousands of domestic and international tournaments which are taking place throughout the football year, in CLIMATE CHANGE
