{"id":714363,"date":"2026-06-04T11:04:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714363\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T11:04:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T11:04:19","slug":"world-cup-2026-heat-experts-warn-reckless-fifa-of-bottle-ban-health-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/714363\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Heat experts warn ‘reckless’ Fifa of bottle ban health risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifa have responded to heat safety concerns by introducing one three-minute hydration break in each half<\/a> for every game at the tournament.<\/p>\n

But Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney, says he is more worried about spectator welfare than that of players.<\/p>\n

“If you look at the athlete population, all of them are very fit,” Jay said.<\/p>\n

“Whereas if you think about the spectators, you’ve got a broad range of different people that will be attending, from young kids to elderly people, people with chronic diseases, people taking different types of medications – all of which results in different levels of heat sensitivity. <\/p>\n

“Your average spectator is probably going to be less resilient to the heat than these highly-conditioned professional athletes.”<\/p>\n

He warned that heat strain could accumulate progressively as fans are exposed to heat on their journey to the game and risk arriving at the stadium in a state of dehydration. <\/p>\n

“It’s not just the temperature that we need to be concerned about,” Jay added.<\/p>\n

“If you think about your average spectator sitting in a closely confined area surrounded by lots of other people, they’ll be in direct sunlight. It might be humid. The airflow might be low. <\/p>\n

“And therefore, the amount of heat stress that their body has to cope with could be quite significant.”<\/p>\n

In May, Jay was one of 20 experts who signed an open letter to Fifa warning that guidelines left players at risk of serious harm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Plans for misting systems and shaded areas were called “inadequate” – and Jay says that the bottle ban endangers fans further: “Unless the cooling controls are really successful, I would imagine this decision [to ban water bottles in stadiums] will clearly heighten the risk of heat-related health incidents.”<\/p>\n

Dr Theodore Keeping from Imperial College London, author of a World Weather Attribution study of heat safety at the tournament, stressed the importance of access to water. <\/p>\n

“Allowing fair and equitable access to hydration is a basic first defence against the extreme heat risks climate change is bringing to this World Cup,” Keeping said. <\/p>\n

Andrew Simms, from the New Weather Institute, said: “Is Fifa climate-trolling the game it’s meant to protect? <\/p>\n

“It is already staging the most polluting World Cup ever, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest climate-polluting oil companies, and has heat safety protocols heavily criticised by world leading health experts. <\/p>\n

“Now making it even more difficult for fans to stay safe in a competition vulnerable to global heating seems to be a reckless rejection of Fifa’s duty of care.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifa have responded to heat safety concerns by introducing one three-minute hydration break in each half for every…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-714363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}