{"id":349433,"date":"2026-06-06T12:22:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349433\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T12:22:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T12:22:14","slug":"fifa-world-cup-climate-change-could-create-dangerous-situations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/349433\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA World Cup: Climate change could create ‘dangerous’ situations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A few hours after Lionel Messi<\/a> and the Argentine World Cup<\/a> team checked into their training base in Kansas City, a series of thunderstorms pounded the area, knocking out power, felling trees and bringing flood and tornado warnings.<\/p>\n

Hardly ideal conditions for the world\u2019s biggest soccer tournament. Yet that\u2019s likely just the opening salvo of a disruptive weather system that could affect the 38-day competition, which kicks off next week with games in Mexico, Canada and the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty safe to say climate change is going to have a mark on this World Cup,\u201d said Kaitlyn Trudeau, a senior research associate of climate science for Sacramento-based Climate Central. \u201cWith climate change<\/a> we know it\u2019s not just going to be hotter, but it\u2019s also going to increase the humidity as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that could make this summer\u2019s World Cup one of the last of its kind. Tournament soccer in June and July has been a tradition dating to the first World Cup in 1930, but since then global temperatures in June have warmed by 1.89 degrees, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That may not sound like a lot, but it takes many days and nights of extreme heat to move the needle that much.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can be a very dangerous situation,\u201d Trudeau said.<\/p>\n

As a result, FIFA President Gianni Infantino<\/a> has already begun discussions on moving the start of the tournament from June to March or October after 2030. In the meantime, early kickoffs, cooling breaks, air-conditioned stadiums and regular weather-related delays will necessarily become common features of the tournament, according to \u201cPitches in Peril,\u201d a detailed report on the impact of climate change on global soccer, released in the run-up to the World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball\u2019s all of a sudden starting to reckon with the new climate realities,\u201d said Elliot Arthur-Worsop, founding director of Football For Future<\/a>, a pioneering U.K. nonprofit and co-publisher of \u201cPitches in Peril.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExtreme weather events are becoming more unpredictable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe players, the spectators and the officials, they\u2019re all at risk here, especially when it comes to extreme heat. How can we future-proof the game?<\/p>\n

\u201cAdaptation looks like moving the entire tournament to another time of year to deal with the extreme weather. Short term it could be moving the kickoff times, it could be introducing more drink breaks, having more heat protocols and safety regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some climatologists fear summer events like the World Cup and Olympic Games<\/a> are just one heatwave away from a major weather-related tragedy. In fact, Arthur-Worsop said his group\u2019s study found that this men\u2019s World Cup, the first held in North America in 32 years, will likely be the last played here.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time the cycle of awarding the hosting rights would possibly come back, our climate projections show that the tournament in its current form would be unplayable due to extreme weather events,\u201d he said. \u201cNot only heat, but other compounding threats such as extreme wind and flooding and wildfires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trudeau worries that whatever adaptations are eventually adopted won\u2019t keep pace with a rapidly warming planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are basically pushing ourselves to a limit,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying we\u2019re going to absolutely lose the World Cup. But we are making it so much harder to find time to safely enjoy these kinds of events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a safe environment and we should not be putting people\u2019s lives at risk just to watch a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

FIFA did move the 2022 World Cup<\/a>, pushing the start of the tournament in Qatar from June to November. Even then the games had to be played in air-conditioned stadiums, though. Three of the 16 venues to be used this summer \u2014 in Atlanta, Houston and Arlington, Texas \u2014 are domed and climate-controlled.<\/p>\n

But the next World Cup, to be held in 2030, will be played mostly in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, where June and July temperatures frequently top 95 degrees. And just one of the likely venues is climate-controlled.<\/p>\n

As for this summer\u2019s tournament, a 2025 study published in the International Journal of Biometeorology found that conditions in 14 of the 16 World Cup host cities are likely to exceed the extreme Wet Bulb Globe Temperature<\/a> (WBGT) threshold, an advanced index used to measure how the human body experiences heat stress.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A weather delay interrupts a Club World Cup match between Auckland City FC and Boca Juniors in Nashville in June 2025.<\/p>\n

(Alex Grimm \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to do complicated math to know it\u2019s hot because there\u2019s also the \u201cfeels like\u201d index, which registers how your body feels the heat. That can be vastly different from the reading on a thermometer. In Miami, for example, where seven World Cup games will be played, humidity will make an air temperature of 90 degrees \u201cfeel like\u201d 109 degrees.<\/p>\n

Under those conditions, it becomes more difficult for the body to cool itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk about temperatures all the time, but that is only one part of the equation. It\u2019s not including the amount of heat that you might feel from humidity,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cIt\u2019s so important because once it gets too humid, then our body\u2019s main cooling mechanism, sweating, is no longer possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the kinds of situations where you have to be really careful. Not just players, but also people who maybe work at the stadiums, people who are watching the matches. It can be a very dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Playing games in the cooler evening hours could alleviate that but FIFA, in a nod to TV viewers in Europe, scheduled 40 of the tournament\u2019s 104 games, including the majority of games in the knockout rounds, to kick off at 3 p.m. or earlier local time. And though mandatory three-minute hydration breaks midway through each half have been added, Trudeau questions their impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of silly to be like, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re going to give an extra water break. But we\u2019re going to be doing it at the hottest time of the day,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt kind of sends mixed messages, right? What is the main priority of FIFA here? Is it to get the most views and the most revenue and the most whatever? Or is it to actually protect these players?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should not be having these in the hottest parts of the world at the hottest times of day,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt\u2019s just common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Chelsea's <\/p>\n

Chelsea\u2019s Benoit Badiashile puts water on his face before a Club World Cup match against Esperance de Tunis in Philadelphia in June 2025.<\/p>\n

(Francois Nel \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

FIFA<\/a> defended the schedule, saying in a statement that climate-related risks are assessed as part of overall tournament planning and managed in close coordination with the host cities, stadium authorities and national agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding on experience from recent tournaments, a tiered heat-mitigation model will apply,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cWhen forecasts indicate elevated temperatures, venues will activate additional cooling capacity, including shaded areas, misting systems, cooling buses and expanded water distribution. Work-rest cycles for staff and volunteers are adapted accordingly, and first-aid readiness is reinforced with clear triage and escalation pathways for suspected heat illness. These measures scale dynamically based on real-time conditions before and during each event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last summer\u2019s FIFA Club World Cup<\/a>, a 63-game tournament played in the U.S. as a kind of dress rehearsal for this year\u2019s event, gives an indication of the problems ahead. That tournament was plagued not just by high heat and humidity, but also by thunderstorms and lightning that paused or delayed a half-dozen matches in Orlando, Fla.; Nashville; Cincinnati; Charlotte, N.C.; and East Rutherford, N.J.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe heat is incredible,\u201d said Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernandez, who played in last summer\u2019s tournament with Chelsea. \u201cI got a bit dizzy during a play. I had to lie down on the ground because I was really dizzy.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaying in this temperature is very dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

But if health risks are the primary concern of summer sporting events on a warming planet, they aren\u2019t the only ones. The weather also affects the quality of play, said Norwegian defender Julian Ryerson, who played for Borussia Dortmund in last summer\u2019s club tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cFootball is different when you play in this humidity and heat,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is really tough. You take some precautions. That\u2019s the only way to go about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the planet continues to bake, there are also increasingly fewer ways of going about staging a World Cup. You can play it nontraditional times and in nontraditional places. You can play it indoors in air-conditioned stadiums.<\/p>\n

Or you can not play it at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re running out of options,\u201d Trudeau said. \u201cWe have to understand that unless we are going to address human-caused climate change, you\u2019re going to start losing these things that are culturally important to us or economically important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot keep doing these things at the rate we\u2019re doing them and the times that we\u2019re doing them in the ways that we\u2019re doing them while we also continue to warm the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A few hours after Lionel Messi and the Argentine World Cup team checked into their training base in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[142978,443,20274,423,65519,142977,2624,80379,6195,48,52,51,14871,47,50,49,65,142976,315,12967,5393],"class_list":["post-349433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-air-conditioned-stadium","tag-climate-change","tag-extreme-heat","tag-game","tag-human-body","tag-humidity","tag-june","tag-kaitlyn-trudeau","tag-kind","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-risk","tag-summer-event","tag-time","tag-tournament","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}