That’s True Too

Give Fossil Fuel Sponsorship the Red Card

I can’t pretend to be much of a football fan, but even I have been enthralled by the twists and turns of this year’s World Cup – the extraordinary emergence of underdogs like Cape Verde, the heroics of Curaçao against Ecuador, and the drama of Egypt versus Argentina.

But I’ve become increasingly enraged by the scale of fossil fuel advertising which now seems to be an indispensable part of the coverage.

As controversial ‘hydration breaks’ give time for yet more of the very fossil fuel advertising that is causing climate heating, it seems more perverse than ever that the largest corporate polluter on the planet, Saudi Aramco, is sponsoring the world’s most-watched sporting event.

This is not a new phenomenon. Last year, the New Weather Institute found that fossil fuel companies alone have pumped $5.6 billion into global ‘sportswashing’ deals, including the World Cup. According to its research, almost no major spectator sport remains untouched by oil and gas finance.