Champions League Carbon Footprint - How Big?

Question

As many of you will know, the Champions League final is to be played in Moscow on the 21st May between Manchester United and Chelsea.

Both teams are to be allocated somewhere in the region if 23,500 tickets for the fans. That is a total of 47,000 tickets and potentially 47, 000 travelling fans.

In order to get 47,000 fans to Moscow, you are going to need somewhere in the region of 190 planes, on return journeys this is 380 flights...just for one football match and of course this does not include planes for teams, staff & global media. This would possibly push the total towards the 400 mark.

I appreciate that the decision has been made prior to the competition to have the final in Moscow, but should FIFA not take a look at this and act responsibly by moving the final to Wembley (this is practically walking distance for Chelsea).

I am a long time Manchester United fan (and hope they win), but, can one football match justify such a MASSIVE carbon footprint.

Answer 1

quite big, but wot about a Formula 1 race season? getting cars and teams around the globe, practice days, qualifing sessions etc. Those cars don't run on bio fuel....

if we were serious about reducing carbon emmissions we would ban all motor sport...too much money tied up in it tho

Answer 2

Manchester is as far from Moscow as Moscow is from Manchester.

Best to just ground all planes, and use rail transport to get people there?

Answer 3

ynot swap the EUFA and CL venues? Rangers/Fior can play in Moscow instead...would Chelski have home adv in Russia..or would Putin arrest Abramovitch and the whole team and put them in labour camps..we can only hope!

Answer 4

You are not honestly trying to claim Man Utd fans will be travelling from Manchester are you?

How many millions will be sat watching their tellys, rather than going out in their cars? The money spent by travelling fans cannot then be spent on other causes of polution, so is it an additional cost?

You must also consider the politics. If you want political agreements with Russians on things like climate change, then you need to include them in World events.

The decision to build the national stadium in Wembley was the real crime.   The carbon footprint for building alone was 100 times more than what it would have been in the Midlands.  Add in all the additional waste in transport queues and maintenance. It is scandalous.

Answer 5

There is often a load of rubbish talked about the environmental damage one individual’s decision to take a commercial scheduled flight can do. The answer to the question, by the way, is NIL. Schedule flights will fly whether you are on one or not – you don’t save one millilitre of carbon emissions by choosing not to fly. Obviously if, over time, we all choose to fly less then the airlines would have to change their schedules and reduce the number of flights and if you want to contribute to this by choosing not to fly whenever possible that’s fine by me. But don’t put pressure on me not to take a scheduled flight for my annual holiday by suggesting that that decision would in itself be environmentally beneficial - it will not be.

Having said all the above there are actions that can be taken in the very short term which would be environmentally beneficial. Take the Champions League Final to be played on 21st May in Moscow between two English teams. 80% of the spectators at this match will be English and will have to take the three and a half hour flight from the UK to Moscow (and back) to be there. The schedule flights will be full so most of these travellers will be going by charter flights – flights that just would not take place if the match was moved to a British stadium. Hundreds of long charter flights to and from the UK and Moscow will burn precious and expensive aviation fuel and create carbon emissions quite unnecessarily. UEFA should move the match to a British stadium!