To worry about the pollution caused by football fans.

[Woulditbeworth]

I know nothing about football but...

There are two football finals with teams from the uk. Liverpool vs Tottenham and Man U vs Arsenal (I think). They are being played in Madrid and Baku, so thats approx 50,000 extra people travelling from the UK, by air.

I get that the locations where agreed in advance but AIBU to be annoyed that we are all trying to be environmentally friendly with reusable bottles and wooden sodding toothbrushes and those with power have no regard for anything other than money!

My dh is luckily going to be in the right country for the right match (Spain) with accomadation. I hope he can get a ticket, the allocations seem really poor. But as an environmental issue he really should pay a fart tax.

Pmsl at this thread! What about the private jets for World leaders going to conferences specifically to pretend they're tackling pollution and climate change? The swarms of people who travel for religious tourism and pilgrimage? To see historic monuments? To go to ibiza to get pissed? To go to benidorm for a piss up? Travel into cities every day for work in diesel cars? Is this for real lol??

Badlad.. i was not saying it eas a vile sport
But the wife eas justified in thinking it ...
And her husband is a twat !!

Some serious whataboutery agwarn!

Well my ds 14 is up .(snuffles needing a drink)
Showed him this..the most un football person ever..
He has 2 questions..
What the heck is a wooden toothbrush..
And has nobody mentioned brexit yet !

Lol people always have suggestions how to save the environment, or voice their concerns over something causing harm but it almost always something they dont care about, i dont see many people worried about planes being used for X reason supporting a long ban on recreational air travel like holidays for a few years and they always have a reason like " i work hard i deserve a holiday if i want" erm...just like those football fans! Its not like theyre literally going for 90 minutes, besides there will be more people going for " mini breaks" ffs

Why single out football fans

Literally millions of people travel daily, football fans are a drop in the ocean.

YABU

What about the Olympic Games, lots of people travel from many countries to play and spectate. Should spectators be banned to decrease air travel or the whole thing just canned.

When you look at pollution as a whole and the minuscule proportion stuff like this contributes you would be better off directing your energy to addressing the main causes globally.

Extinction Rebellion politicians are starting to make moves in the right direction. I just wish they were a bit quicker

Ohhh like Emma Thompson that flew 5,000 miles for one day to take part in the extinction rebellion and then flew 5,0000 miles back to LA nice hypocritical message there just brilliant.

Yeah your right lets all follow emma thompson and the extiction rebellions lead and polute the planet with unnessary furst class air trave brilliant

Emma thomson has played it well

It sticks in the small minds of people and they keep wittering on about it giving continual free publicity

Schmichael, Parker, Pallister, Irwin, Bruce, Sharpe and Ince, Hughes, Mclaire, Keane and Cantona, Robson, Kanchelski and Giggs, c'mon you reds

What I would give to see that team back in a red shirt. sigh

@hatemadeupwords

Should the Olympics be competed in via Skype?

Why stop at sport? Game of Thrones was filmed in loads of locations across Europe. They should have set it in Stevenage. Bond movies should be forced to do all the beach scenes in Newquay.

In 30 years’ time, I think our kids will look back on behaviour like this as ridiculously entitled environmental profligacy from our generation

I agree that history will judge our generation’s unwillingness to change our lifestyles and totally fucking them over as a result. But that will include petroleum cars, disposable nappies, foreign holidays, fast fashion, food miles etc etc and our generally massive consumption and waste - I don’t think the Europa League final is going to be a particular focal point of the rage.

Whilst it’s true because these events are organised way ahead and it would be challenging to change it does seem ridiculous 2 London based teams and their fans have to travel like that. If football authorities were to make changes it would send a message about environmental concerns and be one more baby step to people taking this seriously.
As someone has said everything counts and you have to start somewhere

comingintomyown

I agree it would be nice it’s pribably not practical. Even if it were, UEFA are dickheads and probably too worried that the corporate clients (to whom most of the tickets have been allocated) will be inconvenienced. If UEFA cared at all it wouldn’t be in Baku - one of arsenal’s players may not be able to go because he is Armenian and the political situation means his safety would be at risk.

I have loads and loads to say about the ethics of the international footballing bodies, but it’s a slightly separate issue

I briefly contemplated trying to work out if it would be more environmentally friendly for a fleet of coaches to move 32,000 fans from UK to Madrid but realised I couldn't be arsed.

It does seem absurd to hold a match as far away as Azerbaijan when both teams are UK based, but they had no way of knowing that would be the case.

All international sport is probably quite environmentally un-friendly. Think about the cost of moving all the F1 and MotoGP teams around the world: a lot of people, but lorryloads of bikes/cars, spare parts, tyres etc (don't know if F1 is the same, but MotoGP practically has a mobile hospital that travels with them). And all the tv and press crews that go with them. Add to that the environmental impact of building a whole bloody stadium etc every 4 years for the Olympics and it does seem a bit absurd.

I'm not much of a sports fan, so it wouldn't bother me if they banned all international competitions for everything (well, I'd miss MotoGP, but I'd just watch British Superbikes instead), but I realise that's not a popular view!

Given that sport makes so much money (in our house, football is called "22 millionaires ruining a lawn"), maybe clubs/teams and governing bodies should set an example by offsetting.

What are they supposed to do? Wait and see who's in the final and then hope there's a local stadium free?

To be fair while they couldn’t know who would be in the final, it was never going to have been a team from Azerbaijan or even a team from that side of Europe.

I agree with you. My OH is hoping to go to Madrid to watch the match (if he gets tickets) and I know he would be a lot happier with it being in this country! It's ridiculous we are telling people to try not to travel by plane and then putting on a match with two British teams in another country!!! It will be predominantly spurs and Liverpool fans going to the match from the uk so I think they should move the venue to a neutral location in this country it will save a lot of people unnecessarily getting on a plane!!! He's talking about going to Madrid on a 'day trip' fgs. Ridiculous!!!

What about the Olympic Games, lots of people travel from many countries to play and spectate. Should spectators be banned to decrease air travel or the whole thing just canned.

Actually, the Olympic Games are incredibly wasteful. All the venues which are only used for two weeks or so, sitting disused now.

Look at Rio or Athens. Completely unsustainable.

Also, Qatar and the world football championship? How is this a good idea?!

We’ve conquered all of Europe...🗣

Each team has been allocated 6000 tickets, so that’s a maximum of 24k people visiting, I doubt that many will attend. Most of the fans at these matches will be locals.

I take it you have given up on flying abroad? Why not have a pop at the other few million people who will be flying this year?

I flew to Dublin in February with my adult daughters, I’m flying to Paris next month to take my other adult daughter and grandchildren to Disney. I feel no guilt.

Emma thomson has played it well

It sticks in the small minds of people and they keep wittering on about it giving continual free publicity*

Emma thompson is a hypocrite

And the only small minded people are the extinction rebellion idiots who whitter on about it all changing in a second, how we could all be extinct like the dinosours were. Spouting uneducated rubbish gluing themselves to the stock exchange and jeremy corbins railings with polluting and toxic chemicals (superglue)

I sadly come from the town these idiots come from.

I don't disagree theres a problem but extinction rebellion need to go back to school and stop being hypocrites

You will feel guilty in a few years time, NannyRed, if you want your grandchildren to have a healthy environment to grow up in. But if going to Disney is more important to you then crack on.

As far as I know they are not adding planes. I guess most people will drive since for example EasyJet flights to Madrid actually jumped to £700 one way. And that's even worse. 🤷‍♀️

If you want to discuss something next time at least google the right teams so you don't lose all credibility right in the first post though. And that's coming from someone who doesn't care for football but accepts that where I live there is no escape😁