Hello! Thanks for visiting my blog! In my previous post, I introduced the concept of carbon credits, which saw clubs trying to offset their carbon footprint. Hence, I thought it would be fitting to discuss a key contributing factor to each club’s carbon footprint – air travel! With the Champions League kicking off last week, the topic of aviation is more relevant than ever.
So what exactly is the Champions League? Well, it’s an annual club football competition organised by UEFA whereby 32 European clubs from across the continent compete for club football’s ultimate prize. For fans, they can look forward to match-ups that normally wouldn’t have taken place in their own leagues. For example, the champions of France could square off against the champions of Germany, as was the case in last season’s final.
But with flying the only option for a club to travel from country to country on time, the competition inadvertently contributes to global carbon emissions. In fact, the aviation sector is responsible for 2% of all human CO2 emissions in 2019. It doesn’t help that some clubs are situated far away from each other, as was the case with Portuguese side Benfica and Kazakhstan outfit Astana. In order to play at each other’s stadiums, each team had to make a 6,173km round-trip in 2015.
Let’s not forget the thousands of ardent fans that travel across Europe to support their clubs, meaning more flights and more carbon emissions. So what can be done to tackle the problem? Oddly enough, the COVID-19 pandemic might have just provided a possible solution forward. Earlier this year, all football activities were halted, and it wasn’t until 7 August did the Champions League resumed. With UEFA seeking a swift conclusion to the competition to minimise the delay for next season, they decided to make some drastic changes. Out went the two-legged format, with a single game determining which teams progress to the next round. Furthermore, the remaining matches were played in Lisbon, Portugal, the original venue for the final, to minimise the chances of players contracting COVID-19.
While last season was a one-off born out of unusual circumstances, I wondered how receptive fans were to the idea of a permanent switch to the competition’s format. Out of the 20 Liverpool FC fans I surveyed, only a minority (10%) oppose neutral venues. This is surprising considering that the club achieved many of its most famous victories off the back of fanatical home support. Furthermore, the trips and the resulting memories forged are once-in-a-lifetime for fans, which is why I’m stunned that not many are opposed to the idea.
Perhaps fans are content with travelling to a singular destination instead of multiple venues, especially if its a foreign place since they’ll get to experience something out of the norm. It’s better for the environment too, as the number of round trips needed and consequently the amount of carbon produced will significantly be reduced.
As a passionate fan of the game, I’m rather opposed to the idea. Hence, I would be glad to hear the views from a non-fan standpoint. Do leave your thoughts below!
Hi Yu Xun,
As usual, digging your work. But… with this post, there’s too much (for me at least) that’s unclear for me to fully understand. Let me try and see if I get it and do correct me if I’m wrong…
The traditional format is similar to let’s say the NHL playoffs (https://www.nhl.com/stanley-cup-playoffs), where a series of semi-final games are played in each of the teams home venues. Then, the winning team of that round moves onto the next round, in which it meats the winning team from another semi-final series. And again, they travel back and forth between their home venues.
Thanks for explaining,
jc
Hi Dr Coleman!
Thank you for giving me the chance to explain how the competition works as I had to comply with the word limit in my post. I’ll try my best to explain the competition format as concisely as possible.
By looking up at the Stanley Cup, I understand that there are 4 divisions and 2 conferences. The top 3 teams per division are automatically given spots in the cup while the next best 2 teams in each conference are given wildcard spots which brings the total number of teams to 16. This is similar to the Champions League, where 22 spots are reserved for the top 2-4 teams in Europe’s major leagues (England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Russia) and the winners of the previous season’s Champions League & Europa League (a less prestigious UEFA tournament). Teams that are from the lesser leagues (Denmark, Holland, Portugal etc) will have to go through a qualifying phase in order to take one of the remaining 10 slots available, bringing the total number of teams to 32.
However, unlike the NHL whereby a series of semi-final games is held, the group stages of the Champions League is a double round-robin format. That means teams have to play each other twice, once at their home ground and the other at their opponent’s ground. Since there are 4 teams in each group, that means that each team is guaranteed to play 6 games during the group stages. A win, a draw and a loss are worth 3 points, 1 point, and 0 points respectively. The top 2 teams points-wise from each group will then progress to the next stage of the competition, which is called either the knockout stages or the round-of-16 (since 16 teams qualify for this stage).
From here on, the format is similar to the NHL and teams will have to travel back and forth between their home venues. Winners of each tie will progress based on the aggregate scoreline from the 2 games, and eventually, there’ll only be 2 finalists remaining. So in essence, the finalists of the Champions League would’ve already played a total of 12 games, whereas the finalist for the NHL would have only played 6 games in total (from what I understood). For a more detailed explanation on how the teams qualify for the tournament and are drawn to face each other, do check out the link here. Otherwise, I’ll be happy to provide further clarifications if needed!
Cheers,
Yu Xun
Thank you – I get that you didn’t have room to explain it in the post – this helps me to envision how much travel is involved. really appreciate it.