Online meeting: Fans Against Polluting Sponsors!
Fossil Free Football is holding an online session for fans who are concerned about their club’s polluting sponsor. We are looking for fans to start local campaigns groups against these sponsor deals. Do you want to get involved?
Hit the button below to register your attendance for the meeting on Monday the 17th of February or Wednesday the 26th of February at 20:00 CET.
What is our plan?
Fossil Free Football will support local campaigns at different clubs. These campaign against a polluting sponsor can take many forms: starting small and then building into real momentum for change. It could begin with a social media account and a meeting or group chat to bring interested fans together.
Supporters could explain their perspective in an article for local or fan media to take the message further. Once a group has been established, it could gather at the stadium or write an open letter to the club. Fossil Free Football will help fan groups grow and connect them together to build a strong movement against polluting sponsors. We also have some budget to pay for banners, stickers etc.
Will we win?
Football fans hold real power. Big polluters know that, that’s why they’re desperate to get inside their heads. Fans can make real change at their own club by sending a clear message that they won’t accept the promotion of harmful sponsors. Even if a fan campaign starts small, it can turn up the pressure and make a big difference. Bayern fans kicked out Qatar Airways from their club, others can do the same.
Big polluters are everywhere in football. Airlines are on the front of the shirts of Real Madrid, AC Milan, PSG and many others, while Liverpool promotes a plastics producer and a bank that funds oil projects. Clubs like Tottenham advertise polluting car makers while OGC Nice promotes a harmful petrochemical company, INEOS. FIFA itself is sponsored by Saudi state oil company Aramco.
All these companies make huge profits from pollution while the rest of us live with and pay for the damage. But they also know that this business model is in deep trouble, because most people agree that fossil fuels are doing us harm and want them cut back fast.
So, how can they keep their profit flowing as long as they can? How can they remain popular enough to help stop or slow serious climate action? They attach their brand to something that billions of people value deeply, football. Sponsorships between polluting companies and world-famous football clubs help normalise what they do; even though there’s nothing normal about profiting from pollution during the climate crisis.
In the past, people recognised that smoking was doing harm, so they banned the promotion of tobacco companies.
Now, we know that fossil fuels have got to go, it’s time to kick big polluters out of football!
Fossil Free Football is a group of fans who are campaigning against polluting sponsors in football, from the club level to UEFA and FIFA.
Look around the website to learn more about our campains and actions!
We are part of a growing campaign and movement (check out Cool Down) for climate action in football.
Some examples of what we do:
– Fossil Free Football and others won a claim against FIFA for their false claim that the Qatar 2022 World Cup was “carbon neutral”.
– We went after UEFA for its polluting sponsor deal with Qatar Airways for the EUROs and now for the Champions League.
– We campaign on the 2026 World Cup, an extremely polluting event with a fossil fuel sponsor, Saudi Aramco.
– Last but not least, did you know that more than 130 female players who spoke out against the deal between FIFA and Saudi state oil company Aramco?