Pledgeball, the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) and English Football League (EFL) clubs including Forest Green Rovers have launched a new sustainability charter to help soccer teams reduce their environmental impact when travelling.
Confirmed:
- ‘Sustainable Travel Charter’ to enable English soccer clubs to choose more sustainable travel options
- Charter seeking to build support for more environmentally friendly forms of transport and challenge ideas that flying provides a competitive advantage
- Clubs will be encouraged to cut back on flying and favour commercial flights rather than chartering their own planes
- Forest Green Rovers joined by other clubs including Millwall, Bristol City, Bristol Rovers, Mansfield Town and Swindon Town in supporting charter
Context:
There is growing criticism over soccer’s extensive use of short-haul flights. Premier League clubs have been singled out as the worse culprits, with top-flight teams estimated to generate an average of 56.7 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per season due to travel, around 85 per cent of which is generated through flying to and from fixtures.
Notably, Manchester United flew just 100 miles to Leicester in 2021, while Nottingham Forest took a 20-minute flight to Blackpool for their FA Cup tie in 2023, which is two hours 45 minutes by coach. Outside of England’s top tier, Wrexham took 16 domestic flights in the 2022/23 National League season, a league in which no other team flies.
Comment:
“Football clubs’ reliance on short-haul flights is a thorn in the side of their wider sustainability strategies,” said Katie Cross, chief executive of Pledgeball. “This charter seeks to address the elephant in the room and help clubs incorporate more sustainable travel practices into their operations and lead by example in showing fans and the public that climate action means walking the talk.”
Coming next:
Discussions are ongoing with several other clubs to back the charter, though it remains to be seen if Premier League teams accustomed to short-haul flights will lend their support.
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