How climate change could force FIFA to rethink the World Cup calendar

GENEVA: Soccer had a fierce reckoning with heat at the recently concluded FIFA Club World Cup in the United States — a sweltering preview of what players and fans may face when the US co-hosts the World Cup with Mexico and Canada next summer.

With temperatures rising worldwide, scientists warn that staging the World Cup and other soccer tournaments in the Northern Hemisphere summer is getting increasingly dangerous for both players and spectators. Some suggest that FIFA may have to consider adjusting the soccer calendar to reduce the risk of heat-related illnesses.

“The deeper we go in the decade, the greater the risk without considering more dramatic measures, such as playing in the winter months and/or cooler latitudes,” said Prof. Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Center for Climate Futures in Leeds, England. “I’m getting increasingly worried that we are only one heatwave away from a sporting tragedy and I would like to see governing bodies lean into the climate and health science.”

Tournament soccer in June and July is a tradition going back to the first World Cup in 1930.

Since then, the three-month period of June, July and August globally has warmed by 1.05 degrees Celsius (1.89 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meanwhile, European summer temperatures have increased by 1.81 degrees C. The rate of warming has accelerated since the 1990’s.

Climate scientists say that’s a factor that needs to be considered when playing high-intensity outdoor sports like soccer.

“If you want to play football for 10 hours a day, they’ll have to be the hours of the early morning and late evening,” climatologist Friederike Otto from Imperial College, London, told The