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Fossil Free Football

We are a group of football fans campaigning for climate action in our sport. We know that football can't thrive in a world with much more extreme weather so we don't want big polluters using it to promote fossil fuels.

What do we want?

our demands

Football cannot be played in extreme heat or on a flooded field. But even though the game is highly exposed to extreme weather, many football associations and clubs sell their platforms to the big polluters making it worse. They are using our game to keep the world hooked on harmful fossil fuels. 

That’s why we’re campaigning to kick fossil fuel companies, airlines, cruiselines, ICE car makers, fossul fuel financiers and more out of football. 

Harmful advertising must have no place in our game. We need a tobacco style ban on polluter sponsorship in football. 

 

our demands

How do we make it happen?

our approach

We need players and fans to send football clubs, leagues and associations a clear message: it is time to kick polluters out. 

Fans have the power to change the game. If we come together, we can force football’s decision makers to listen to us and do better.

Players are also hugely influential. Professionals like Tessel Middag, David Wheeler and many others have already spoken out about the way football is used to promote polluting companies.

If you love football but hate the way it is being used to promote pollution, we need your help. 

 

join us

Frank Huisingh

Founder / coordinator
Frank founded Fossil Free Football after a career with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He works on it full time: organising campaigns, involving more and more people, coordinating the team and speaking to the media about the need to make football fossil fuel free. He supports Ajax.

Tessel Middag

Player
Tessel currently plays for Wellington Phoenix in the A-League. Previously, she played for ADO Den Haag, AFC Ajax, Manchester City, West Ham United, Fiorentina and Rangers. She has also played 44 times for the Dutch national team, including the 2015 World Cup. She’s also a trained historian, with a focus on the history of women’s football. Tessel is a member of the player’s union in the Netherlands. She is concerned about the climate crisis and convinced that football can play a major role in the social change needed to overcome it.

Zach Lubin

Volunteer
Zach recently graduated with a master’s in International Relations from the University of Glasgow. Originally from Los Angeles, he played at a high level growing up and joined teams in Scotland and South Korea during his studies. He is now pursuing a career in global environmental governance and sustainable development. During his free time, he helps Fossil Free Football with research focused on football in North America. He supports Manchester United.

Vitas Carosella

Volunteer
Vitas is a young professional with a master’s degree in International Relations. He is American, but has spent many years living all across Spain. He is committed to environmental causes and the restructuring of football in a sustainable manner. He fell in love with football watching Zinedine Zidane and is a Real Madrid fan.

Kevin Mtai

Volunteer
Kevin Mtai is a Kenyan climate justice defender, football enthusiast, and community organizer with over five years of experience in environmental and human rights advocacy. He is the Co-founder of Kheri Environmental Action Network (KEAN), a youth-led initiative promoting sustainability, climate education, and community resilience and Communication Coordinator Loss And Youth Coalition. 
Kevin uses football to connect climate advocacy with everyday life, mobilizing communities and inspiring action. He has worked with local and international organizations on climate justice, loss and damage, and sustainable development, and is committed to amplifying youth voices and advancing a fossil-free future.
 
 

 

 

Ali Hines

Volunteer
Ali has over ten years experience in campaigning, investigations and advocacy, working on environmental and human rights issues. She has held senior policy and campaigns roles within the non-profit sector, most recently at Global Witness working on land and land and environmental defenders, and now works as a freelance consultant based in Edinburgh and London. She believes in the power of football for structural and progressive change. Supporting Leicester City has given her the belief that the unachieveable is, in fact, achievable.

Matt Tutt

Volunteer
Matt is an SEO consultant that is passionate about working for the people and organisations that are looking to make a genuinely positive impact in the world. Having grown disillusioned with the state of the game at the top level, he wants to see how football can instead be used as a vehicle to push for a fossil-fuel-free world, as a posed how it is currently being abused to promote fossil-fuel polluters in a form of sportswashing.

Bas Bijlsma

Board president
Bas has worked for a more sustainable world in different roles: as an activist, diplomat and political advisor. He saw how the climate crisis has a huge impact on the most vulnerable people around the world. He is keen to make sure football is no longer used to promote big polluters.

Roy Blokvoort

Board Member
During working hours, Roy is mainly preoccupied with the remnants of the Second World War. Outside of office hours, he is a football junkie, who has watched more football than he ever played (unless you count games on Football Manager). He did play football, non-professional in every sense of the word, in the youth teams of Focus ’07 & the 6th team of King’s College Football Club. He supports FC Twente & Tottenham Hotspur, and supports the Fossil Free Football-cause as secretary of the board.

Peter Crisp

Campaigner
Peter is a football fan and campaigner who has always loved sport and the natural world. He wants to ensure that football is a source of positive change by communicating Fossil Free Football’s message to audiences everywhere. He is a Manchester United fan, from the U.K and Australia, and now lives in the Netherlands.

Daniel Lissoni

Volunteer
Daniel works as a Communications Officer for an environmental NGO in Brussels. In his free time he helps Fossil Free Football by developing communication materials. He supports AS Roma.

Felix Cresswell

Volunteer
Felix is a Masters’ student at the University of Manchester studying International Relations. His research interests include the role of petrostates in sport, particularly in football and Formula One. He recognises the need for immediate action to stop oil producers and polluters from washing their reputation with sport. He supports Manchester United.

Robin Cartier

Volunteer
Robin is a Sport in Society Masters student and is writing a thesis on the relationship between football and fossil fuel sponsorships. He campaigns to make football stop ignoring the climate emergency.
Originally from France, he has lived in Sweden and Norway for several years. He is also a UEFA B coach, having recently worked with the FC Rosengard academy. Robin focuses on grassroots action, like in 2024 when he demonstrated alone against the award of the World Cup to Saudi Arabia, outside FIFA headquarters in Zurich.

Christian Kuitert

Volunteer
Policy advisor by day, musician by night and always an FC Twente fan. Although this sentence already dedicates too many words to his career at the very bottom of the Dutch football pyramid, Christian is dedicated to making sure the multi-billion industry at the top becomes more sustainable and operates responsibly.

Samran Ali

Volunteer
Based in Philadelphia, Samran is a data analytics professional at an environmental nonprofit. An Arsenal supporter, he recognises a critical need to eliminate fossil fuel dependency in football. He believes in leveraging data analytics to drive this transformation and aims to be part of a growing coalition of voices advocating for a greener, more equitable future for football.

Diederick van der Linden

Volunteer
Diederick is a young professional. He believes it’s time to stop listening to money in our most beloved game. Unfortunately, it has become a platform for sponsors who add nothing to society and have a negative effect on people. If the football world can set an example, the rest of society will (hopefully) follow suit.

Eric van de Giessen

Board treasurer
Eric always loved to play football. Now he manages a youth football team in Utrecht. He enjoys witnessing how football strengthens players’ creativity, perseverance and cooperation skills. Each player has her or his own added value on the pitch. This translates to the global climate crisis: we all need to do our part – and cooperate effectively – to tackle this huge problem together.

Nori Spauwen

Board Member
Nori is an activist-turned-diplomat-turned-activist-again. She deeply cares about climate change, equal rights for women and queer people, and fighting racism. The highlight of Nori’s years as a diplomat in Paris, was being able to attend every game of the Women’s World Cup, where the absolute love of her life – the Oranje Leeuwinnen – almost won. Still trying to get over that lost final, she decided to join the board of Fossil Free Football to make sure our beloved game does not wreck the earth. On the side, Nori is a coach and trainer for activists, and writes a book about healthy activism.
 
 

 

 

Patrick Caskie

Volunteer
Patrick is a master’s student at the Global Development Institute, studying migration and global development. He also works in the recruitment side of the football industry and is a fan of Glasgow Rangers. He sees a crucial need for football to become more environmentally conscious, equitable and sustainable, viewing fossil-free football as the perfect platform and coalition of voices to promote this message.
 
 

 

 

Are you our next member?

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Details

our demands

Name of the organisation: Stichting Fossil Free Football

RSIN: 865297666

KVK: 90385039

Contact details: info@fossilfreefootball.org. 

Board members:

– Chair: Bas Bijlsma

– Treasurer: Eric van de Giessen

– Secretary: Roy Blokvoort

– Board member: Nori Spauwen

– Board Member: Janna Willems.

Founders: Frank Huisingh, Bas Bijlsma, Roy Blokvoort.

Staff members: Frank Huisingh (director), Peter Crisp (campaigner)

Goals of the organisation: a fossil ad ban in professional football, so polluting companies can no longer advertise their products during and around football matches. Our second goal is to make the organisation of game more sustainable, by reorganising the football calendar to lower the emissions of professional football.

Policy plan: we aim to reach our goals by mobilising football fans. Together we push international football associations and big clubs to break their ties with polluting sponsors and take serious climate action.

Reporting:

Financial compensation policy: our staff members are paid, our board members work on a voluntary basis (there are also no attendance fees).

Privacy policy: please find our privacy policy here.

For Dutch donors: Fossil Free Football is een ANBI instelling. Omdat Fossil Free Football bij de belastingdienst is aangemerkt als een ANBI instelling kunnen schenkingen geheel of gedeeltelijk in aftrek gebracht worden op het belastbaar inkomen. Hier is het formulier publicatieplicht fondswervende instellingen.

 
 

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