Step onto the terraces and discover how sustainable – or not – the global phenomenon that is football really is.
Paul puts his decades of sports reporting experience to good use as we talk to Dr Idlan Zakaria, from the University of Birmingham.
Idlan returns to her old Lancaster University stamping grounds and brings with her passions for both football and sustainability. She talks us through a love of football sparked by the 1982 World Cup and nurtured through years of supporting – to Paul’s annoyance firstly Manchester United, but now mainly Arsenal Women – watching, playing, and then coaching, and how sustainability ties into it all.
From the greenhouse gas emissions of clubs, fans and major global and continental tournaments, to the ‘world’s greenest football club’ Forest Green Rovers and their vegan-only diets across staff and players, and the rationality (or lack thereof) of supporting Barrow AFC, we look at how the beautiful game affects the planet.
We analyse the climate impact of constructing and maintaining stadiums – from carbon footprints to single-use plastic waste to water use to floodlight usage; become diverted by the Olympics; talk fast fashion football-style; consider the huge pay disparity between world-famous players and other club staff; and praise the power of grassroots organisations in instigating change among fans and clubs.
Can footballers be sustainability influencers? Can more clubs follow the Forest Green model? Why do clubs have so many different shirts?
Plus, Paul takes the chance to have a rant or two; Jan faces awkward questions about football; Dundee United, Aberdeen and Partick Thistle take some unwarranted abuse; the definition of a good Geordie comes into question; and Jan is bafflingly compared for the first – and probably last – time to pop megastar Taylor Swift!
Read more about sports sustainability charity Pledgeball, who support fans and players to take meaningful climate action, here: https://pledgeball.org/about-us/
And you can discover more about Forest Green Rovers – minus why other teams don’t like them – here: https://www.fgr.co.uk/another-way/