Frank Huisin has mixed feelings about the 2026 World Cup.
On the other hand, he is rooting for his home country, the Netherlands, and is excited to see an underdog team from a small and medium-sized country prove itself on the world stage.
But he’s not thrilled about seeing those same players toiling in the brutal heat, surrounded by signs from the world’s biggest oil producers.
“I’m a football fan and I want my sport to do the right thing,” said Huisin, founder of the advocacy group Fossil Free Football. what the hell happened Host Laura Lynch. “I don’t want my sport to become a broadcaster carrying oil company messages.”
Fossil Free Football is calling on FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, to end its partnership with Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s largely state-owned oil producer.
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This is part of a larger movement of advocates, doctors and players calling on FIFA to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry, saying it is negatively impacting players’ health and threatening the future of the sport itself.
In an emailed statement to CBC News, FIFA said it is implementing strategies to reduce the World Cup’s carbon footprint and protect players and staff from the heat. The company defended its corporate sponsorship, pledging to put 90 percent of proceeds from the event “back into the global game.”
“This record amount of reinvestment, supported by commercial partnerships, including with global partners like Aramco, is helping to ensure the organization and development of football in more than 100 countries where it would not have been possible,” FIFA said.
“The world’s biggest stage”
FIFA has pledged to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2040. But a report released last year by Earth’s Responsible Scientists estimated that this year’s men’s World Cup will be the most polluted in its 95-year history.
The authors say this is also due to the sheer size and scope of the event, which will see more than 1 million fans travel internationally to watch 48 teams play in 16 cities across the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Another key factor, they say, is the visibility and profits it will bring to Aramco, which is widely cited as the world’s largest and most profitable carbon emitter and is 98.5% owned by Saudi Arabia.
Frank Huisin, founder of the advocacy group Fossil Free Football, is calling on FIFA to sever ties with Saudi Aramco. (Laura Ponchel)
Aramco has been responsible for more than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1965, emitting the equivalent of 27 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2018 and 2030, according to the environmental group Climate Earth.
“And that brings us to the biggest stage in the world, the Men’s World Cup,” Huisin said.
Aramco declined to comment on the matter.
Doctors call sponsorship a ‘conflict of interest’
At the same time, this year’s World Cup is expected to be the hottest.
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have predicted potentially dangerous heat levels for the majority of matches scheduled for the tournament, warning that it will have a negative impact on players’ health.
FIFA says it has introduced a “heat mitigation” model that includes restricting games to the hottest parts of the day, regular three-minute hydration breaks for players, shaded areas and mist stations at venues, and additional substitutions to allow players to rest between matches.
But some medical experts say this isn’t enough. A coalition of 21 doctors and scientists signed an open letter to FIFA last month calling for stronger policies to protect players and fans from the heat, including mandatory cooling-off periods and lower temperature thresholds for match postponements.
The letter also called on FIFA to ban fossil fuel industry sponsorships as a “conflict of interest with the protection of player welfare.”
Dr. Samantha Green, president of the Canadian Association of Environmental Physicians, says rising temperatures due to climate change are putting soccer players and spectators at risk. (Courtesy of Samantha Green)
“Sport is so important. It provides real health benefits to people,” said signatory Dr. Samantha Green, a Toronto family physician and president of the Canadian Association of Environmental Physicians.
“But oil companies, and fossil fuel companies more broadly, are causing climate change. And it’s clear that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming, which actually threatens the very sport they’re involved in.”
Players are also speaking out
Dutch player Tessel Middag is one of more than 130 female professional footballers who signed an open letter criticizing FIFA’s decision to partner with Saudi Aramco in 2024.
She says activism comes naturally to female soccer players because they have always had to fight for their place in the sport.
The four-year partnership between FIFA and Aramco also includes the 2027 Women’s World Cup.
“We feel that partnerships like the one announced with Saudi Aramco dishonor the great work that we and our predecessors and women before us have done,” Midag said.
Midag, a center-right member, says women’s soccer has a long and proud history of activism. (Ian McNicol/Getty Images)
Ms. Midag opposes Aramco’s role in climate change, but says her opposition to sponsorship goes even deeper.
“This was their track record on human rights as well,” she says.
She pointed to Saudi Arabia’s increase in executions, its male guardianship law that limits women’s freedom, the imprisonment of women’s rights activist Manahel al-Otaibi, and its law banning homosexuality, which makes it punishable by death.
She argues that players should play a role in determining FIFA’s sponsorship.
“After all, as players, we play in a stadium with big Saudi Aramco signs all around us.”
The ties between the fossil fuel industry and sport go beyond the partnership between FIFA and Aramco.
According to a report by the New Weather Institute, oil and gas companies will spend an estimated $5.6 billion on sports sponsorships by 2024, a move critics call “greenwashing.”
Huisin says it’s no coincidence that this has happened at a time when people are concerned about the climate crisis and turning to alternative energy sources.
“These oil companies know that. And they know what we like best. We like sports,” he said.
“When you see how excited fans are for their country to be in the World Cup, big and small, you know that participating in the World Cup goes straight to the hearts of fans around the world.”
