William Troost-Ekong: We need to start a conversation about sustainability in football

In January 2023, the Argentina World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez and his entourage touched down in London to complete a British record transfer to Chelsea. The deal involved a sprawling cast of agents, lawyers and associates, all being ferried around in chauffeur-driven cars and private aircraft. A few days earlier, another landmark transfer had taken place, yet had flown almost entirely under the radar.

The Nigeria international, William Troost-Ekong, moved on loan from Watford to Salernitana in Serie A, but there was no private jet and no A-lister treatment. Instead, there was a fistful of train tickets, boarding passes for a commercial flight from London to Naples, and contact details for an olive farm near Salerno.

Troost-Ekong made what he believes was the world’s first carbon-neutral international football transfer.

Next week, training schedule permitting, he hopes to tell his story at the Cop28 summit in Dubai, via a virtual appearance in a seminar on sustainability in sport.

It's a story that started in the Netherlands, where he was born to a Dutch mother and Nigerian father. A youth career with Fulham and Tottenham gave little clue to the rich and varied path ahead in a senior career that has traversed the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Norway, Turkey, Italy and Greece. Not to mention 64 caps for the Super Eagles, who he hopes to represent at the Africa Cup of Nations in January.

Those experiences have shaped Troost-Ekong’s outlook and piqued an interest in environmental issues; the seed of curiosity planted amid the personal growth of fatherhood – he has three children under five – and fertilised by a nagging sense that things “just don’t add up” when it comes to the disparity between the wealth and influence of