Global warming poses a new challenge for the football industry and athletes around the world, with implications for their health and the ability to hold tournaments in many locations.
The football industry is rolling Billions of euros per year. But this popular sport could also be affected by the climate crisis. A new study reveals worrying predictions about the ability to hold games and sporting activities in various places around the world. Last December, FIFA announced that the 2034 World Cup will be hosted by Saudi Arabia, after the tournament was held in 2022. In QatarIn the face of global warming, such behavior is unsustainable, for athletes and the environment.
Proper sports activity, amateur as well as professional, requires appropriate environmental conditions and, preferably, preparation for them. Athletes' preparations for competitions take into account various conditions, such as oxygen depletion in high places and temperature. "In the past, before major competitions, runners had an 'altitude procedure.' They would train at high altitude to get used to different oxygen conditions," says Prof. Adi Wolfson, a sustainability expert from the Sami Shimon Academic College of Engineering and chairman of the Sustainability Committee of the Israeli Olympic Committee. "Today, a 'heat procedure' is incorporated into training. If the competition will be in a hot place, you need to prepare your body and understand how to cool it down." The goal is for athletes to be ready to compete at their maximum ability, without getting hurt.
Beat Messi
In a famous soccer match from 2009, the small Bolivian team defeated the Argentina of Leo Messi and other stars 6-1. "Bolivia is a very high country," says Nir Levin, an Israeli coach who works in soccer academies in England and was formerly assistant coach to Abram Grant on the Zambian national team. The match was held in the Bolivian capital, La Paz, which is 3,600 meters above sea level. "They managed to win because the Argentines had no air," Levin explains. In this case, it was "only" a performance impairment and perhaps an embarrassment on the field, but sometimes environmental conditions do not allow for sports activities at all. For example, extreme heat conditions, which can cause For an increase in morbidity and increase the risk of premature death.
For this reason, to cope with the intense heat that prevails in the Arabian Peninsula during the summer, football competitions were moved from the summer to the winter of the northern hemisphere. However, this is not possible in every tournament and everywhere, and global warming may affect the possibility of holding major tournaments in some countries of the world in the future.
Africa Football Tournament
study Hadash examined how climate change will affect the ability of African countries to host the “African Cup of Nations” – the continent’s football national team tournament held in the winter every two years. In the previous tournament, which took place about a year ago in Ivory Coast, measures were already adopted to cope with the heat and humidity, such as frequent drink breaks. The next edition will be held in Morocco at the end of 2025. The African Championship has been hosted by 18 different countries on the continent to date, and in 2027, three additional hosts – Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania – will join the list, co-hosting the tournament for the first time. A wide variety of hosts makes it possible to bring a major football event to many countries and to additional audiences.
To quantify the harm to normal athletic performance, the researchers used an index of the negative impact of heat on physical activity. The index was taken from the United States Army, which used it to assess the level of risk for military training, and in the last decade it has also been used in studies of soccer player performance. An increase in the index value, which represents a high level of risk from athletic activity, was associated with a decrease in the total running distance and the number of sprints performed by soccer players during a game.
The researchers calculated the expected increase in the index across Africa according to the models of theIPCC The worst-case scenario is that global average warming will reach 4.4 degrees Celsius by 2050. As a result, the researchers concluded that in the coming decades, fewer and fewer countries in Africa – which is considered a climate change hotspot – will be able to host the African football championship. In western Africa, the expected warming is almost 6 degrees Celsius, and in the rest of the continent, warming is also expected to be above the global average. This trend will cause many countries, which currently have no restrictions on sports activities, to become countries at high, or even very high, risk for holding sports activities.
The country that is expected to suffer the most is Ghana, which traditionally has a successful national team and many players in senior teams. In the most severe warming scenario, it will be the only country to be classified as very high risk as early as 2031–2060, and after that period it will be the only one to be classified as under an activity ban. In the medium-severity warming scenario, it will face very high risk in the years 2071–2100.
Sharp transition
One of the challenges athletes will face in the face of global warming is the extreme transition between different climate zones. “Going from a hot place to the cold of England [for example], before the body has acclimated, has physiological effects, and vice versa – a player who goes from England to a hot country will suffer as well,” explains Levin. Not only will going from Africa to European football challenge the athletes’ level of performance more, but the opportunity to develop as a player may also be limited. “In rainy England, the grass grows green, in Africa sometimes the whole pitch is yellow. Ultimately, the conditions affect the game and the players,” he says.
In the most severe warming scenario examined in the study, many countries will reach a very high risk level on an annual average, several decades after Ghana, with long periods of ban on sports activity throughout the year. By the end of the 21st century, across Africa, only the small country לסוטו will remain risk-free. Therefore, the researchers suggest that the climate issue should be part of decision-making on the dates and locations of future tournaments, processes that should be accompanied by the construction and management of stadiums that are adapted to huge events in high temperatures.
“Most of the big events are in the summer now – but summer is getting hotter,” explains Wolfson. He suggests that one of the changes we’ll see is a shift of major sports championships to cooler times of the year, or even cooler times during the summer. “The decision of where and when tournaments are held is going to be more significant in the future, especially when it comes to outdoor competitions rather than indoor ones.”
“In all major sporting events today, there is an understanding that sustainability is part of the issue,” Wolfson argues. For example, the planning of the Paris Olympics held last summer was guided by principles such as minimal new construction, finding continued uses for infrastructure that would not become a “white elephant,” more efficient use of energy, water and food, and starting to clean the Seine River of polluting sewage to the point of making it a suitable place for swimming and competitions in the future. From an environmental perspective, Wolfson says that “a major [sporting] event can bring with it significant good news,” especially in the fight against the climate crisis. In addition to Wolfson, the European Union also sees the sports industry "Key player" To deal with the climate crisis.
“There’s a perception that if it’s greener, it’s more expensive,” says Wolfson. But even in Africa, green measures will be cheaper in the long run. “For example, setting up a solar farm that supplies electricity to the remaining competition sites, so that local people can benefit from it environmentally, economically and socially.” If the health and performance of players, as well as allowing local communities to profit, are not issues that are high on the priority list of sports leaders, then perhaps the economic incentive will convince them.
Around the world, Sports stadiums Many are at risk from rising sea levels, fires and heat stress. Perhaps these will cause decision-makers in the world of sports to stop mining the industry on which it sits, and to transform it from a field based in part on the money of polluting industries into a model for changing the climate issue and promoting awareness among its many fans. Global warming requires the world of sports to face new challenges and act to reduce environmental impacts. The future of the game depends on our ability to adapt to a changing reality. "The climate crisis is affecting competitions and the health of athletes, and we need to treat it accordingly," he concludes.
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