Will climate change force the game of football to go indoors?

Climate change, football, and sustainability discussed at workshop in Qatar’s Education City

Team News Porter

Climate change, as we know, has a million and more implications for mankind. Right now, since the mega FIFA World Cup event is under way, we can ask this question: Will climate change force football to go indoors in the future?

Don’t get surprised because that’s precisely what’s being discussed and deliberated by experts. Generation Amazing’s GOAL 22 – the first international school exchange program alongside the FIFA World Cup – brought together several students at Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Education City to explore and understand the relationship between sustainability and football, said a news article published on QF’s website qf.org.qa.

Interactive workshop

The interactive workshop titled ‘Climate Change, Sustainability and Football’ was delivered by Barney Weston, co-director of ‘Football For Future’. The session featuring representatives from more than 10 countries saw students learning about sustainability in the context of football and how climate change threatens it as a sport – the primary two issues being flooding and extreme heat.

As for the ways in which climate change can impact football in the future, communities, particularly ones that are not financially stable, would be the hardest hit, the session noted.

Bringing people together

Football has “brought people together and created communities and friendships”, but if flooding means fields are no longer suitable to play on, it will mean “one less chance for people to connect” and have a knock-on effect on the physical and mental wellbeing of communities.

Baha Darsa, a student from Palestine said, “If the world doesn’t take action quickly enough, I fear a future where it will only be possible to play football indoors and not under clear blue skies like most of us know it now.”

The ideas discussed at the session included using sustainable choices when traveling, such as taking train instead of flying, even if it means a longer journey time. Adopting sustainable clothing and avoiding single-use items were also discussed.

Sustainability

“It’s about using football as a tool to start conversations around sustainability and getting youngsters to make more environmentally sustainable choices. If they get it, they will then go on and have these conversations with their friends and families, and that can propel serious change,” said Weston.

GOAL 22 is Generation Amazing Foundation’s flagship sport for development international exchange program, bringing together young leaders from across the world for a series of virtual and physical workshops.

[Main/featured image by Anja from Pixabay]