In 2024 the world passed 1.5C of heating, but FIFA now acknowledging that it is no longer possible to hold a World Cup in summer makes plain for football fans that a new chapter in the climate crisis is now open. 

Extreme heat, which marked major US hosted tournaments in 2024 and 2025, is guaranteed to overshadow the World Cup’s coming next year and in 2030 and 2034. 

But instead of fighting to hold onto a climate safe for summer football as we have always known it, FIFA has actively contributed to the global heating that ensures it is no longer possible. Despite committing to halve its emissions, it has massively expanded its competitions and handed its giant platform to mega polluting oil companies and airlines. The 2026 World Cup will be the most polluting event of all time, bigger than any previous tournament and covered in promotional messaging from the world’s biggest oil company, Saudi Aramco. 

FIFA has embraced authoritarian petrostates, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and now the oil funded President Trump, who are totally committed to extracting every last dollar from fossil fuels, despite the price paid by ordinary people around the world. They deserve to be shunned for standing in the way of international climate cooperation, but FIFA has only worked to serve their pro-pollution agenda. 

It’s time for FIFA to stop actively making this crisis worse. This means breaking its ties to Aramco and other polluters and reversing the expansionist agenda opposed by almost everyone in football. 

Frank Huisingh from Fossil Free Football said: “Fans see how the climate crisis impacts football. The actions of the fossil fuel industry and their allies now threaten to take summer World Cups from us, an iconic part of being a fan in this part of the world. It’s unacceptable that FIFA is still selling its huge platform to Aramco and its pro-oil allies”.