By The behemoth that is FIFA looks to be ready for Sunday’s kickoff to the 2022 Men’s World Cup, seemingly swatting aside a laundry list of self-inflicted controversies related to the host country of Qatar, including greenwashing charges around organizers’ claims of carbon neutrality (this op-ed from The Guardian is must read on the subject).
Why are the Grand Poobahs of world football able to ignore these problems? Because a projected five billion people will watch at least some of the month-long quadrennial ‘festival of futbol’, despite its unfortunate November-December run¹.
Thankfully, like any bloated industry, world soccer is being disrupted by agile clubs in smaller leagues where barriers to innovation are lower. Forest Green Rovers, a club in the third tier of English football pyramid, has become the Greenest Team in Sports, thanks to its rooftop solar, solar-powered MoBots, and all-plant-based concession stands. Vermont Green FC, an expansion club in the fourth tier in the US soccer structure, is operating on a similar, climate-forward business model.
And then there is Bohemian FC of Dublin. As with Vermont Green, the Irish Premier Division club is making climate justice a core strand of its DNA. What does that mean, exactly? We went right to the source to answer that question, talking with Sean McCabe, Climate Justice Officer at Bohemians on today’s Episode 22 of Green Sports Pod!
Click here to listen to our conversation!
Sean McCabe (Photo credit: Bohemian FC)
¹ FIFA moved the men’s World Cup from its traditional June-July time slot to November-December because of the extreme summer heat in Qatar.
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