The impact of football on the climate has come under scrutiny in the last few years, in no small part due to the hosting of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar – a major fossil fuel producing nation – and many instances of top-flight teams flying extremely short distances to play matches.

 

Although there is a lot of talk about the emissions associated with football, weather extremes and a changing climate will equally impact upon football. And whilst the climate implications of elite football are getting a lot of attention from researchers and the media, it’s also the case that smaller teams and less wealthy leagues will need to adapt to changes in the climate. So with that in mind, in this post I’d like to talk about the resilience challenges facing Scottish football.

 

The first and most apparent resilience challenge facing Scottish football is extreme weather events such as storms and extreme wind and rain. This isn’t a new problem – for as long as I can remember, matches have been called off with just a few hours’ notice due to snow or waterlogged or frozen pitches. But climate change will make these extremes more intense. In January 2022, Storm Malik led to a spate of games being postponed, as high winds made parts of stadiums unsafe and also made it impossible for team buses and fans to actually get to the games. For a climate-resilient fixture list in future, leagues can make better use of weather forecasting and make decisions on whether to cancel further in advance of games. Fixture lists could also be scheduled so that teams aren’t having to travel long distances at the times of year when extreme conditions are more common.

Two mens arms, one passing a plastic water bottle to the other.

A second and related resilience challenge concerns players and supporters. In Scotland, because we are a cooler country and traditionally play football over the winter months, we might not think that extreme heat can be an issue. But our football season starts in late July – right at the time of year when Scotland can expect more intense heat events as the climate warms. There’s a large body of evidence showing that training or playing in extreme heat and direct sunlight puts athletes at risk of dehydration and heat stroke. It is therefore important that coaches and officials are well educated in strategies for reducing heat risk. This may mean increasing water breaks, reducing intensity of training, or scheduling training sessions and matches for cooler times of the day. And whilst it might seem humorous, the sight of dozens of shirtless Scotland supporters celebrating our victory over Norway recently serves as a reminder that in Scotland, we all too often still see hot weather as a chance for a bit of fun. So there’s a need to ensure fans too are educated in staying shaded and hydrated when they are cheering their team on.

 

A final resilience challenge for Scottish football is about the stuff we play on: grass. Football pitches require a lot of maintenance and watering. As we are seeing now, water scarcity is becoming an issue in Scotland and difficult decisions might have to be made about how we prioritise water use. Both prolonged dry spells and periods of intense heavy precipitation can damage grass pitches too. It’s thus worth thinking about different techniques that can keep football fields healthy under climate and resource pressures, or even investigating the trade-offs with other environmental impacts associated with artificial turf.

 

Clearly, all of these initiatives require time, expertise and crucially money to do well. And a football fan myself, I know that we grumble when money gets diverted away from signing players to off-field activities. But the message we need to send to fans and clubs is that doing resilience well makes good economic and sporting sense. Fewer last-minute call-offs, fewer urgent repairs to infrastructure, and healthier players ultimately all mean that the team can get on with the job of doing the best they can out on the pitch.

 

Read Leslie Mabon’s review of the scholarly evidence on football and climate change in Climate Policy journal here.

 

REFERENCES

Mabon L (2022) Football and climate change: what do we know, and what is needed for an evidence-informed response? Climate Policy https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2022.2147895

First published: 21 June 2023

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Read Leslie Mabon’s review of the scholarly evidence on football and climate change in Climate Policy journal here.

Leslie wrote a piece for us last year on Scotland's resilience to Extreme heat which you can read here. 

You can follow Leslie Mabon on twitter.