Description
FIFA's Qatar World Cup carbon neutral claim has been ruled misleading as of June 2023.
The complaints were made to the advertising watchdogs in the UK, France, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Swiss advertising watchdog took all complaints on.
Ruling
The advertising authority states FIFA should “refrain in future from making the contested allegations, unless it can provide, at the time of communication, full proof of the calculation, using generally accepted methods, of all CO2 emissions caused by the tournament, and proof that these CO2 emissions have been fully offset”.
The authority concludes that FIFA was in breach of the Swiss Federal Law on Unfair Competition, which could constitute a criminal offence in some jurisdictions.
The ruling was based on a report by Carbon Market Watch, which showed how FIFA grossly underestimated the esmissions of the World Cup, a big part of which are the emissions as a result of constructing the new stadiums. Furthermore, FIFA did not include the 500 daily shuttle flights between Dubai, Riyadh, Kuwait and Doha in its calculation.
CO2 compensation, which should neutralize all emissions, does not work in any case. The way FIFA claimed to compensate emissions did not even fulfill minimal international standards.
FIFA is requested to “refrain in the future from claiming that the World Cup in 2022 in Qatar was climate- and CO2-neutral.”
Five complaints
In November 2022, the complaints that led to this ruling were filed. The New Weather Institute has made the challenge in the UK. In Switzerland Klima-Allianz Schweiz (Climate Alliance) has made a similar complaint, alongside France's Notre Affaire a Tous, Belgium's Carbon Market Watch and the Netherlands' Fossil Free Football.
