Sustainability round-up: July 20
This week’s sustainability round-up includes Women’s World Cup players calling out FIFA on prize fund disparity; The Fair Game Index revealing its latest update on the sustainability of English clubs, and World Athletics highlighting the sustainability of events and organisations within the sport.
With the FIFA Women’s World Cup kicking off today (Thursday) in New Zealand and Australia, the Australian Women’s football team has called out FIFA over offering a quarter of the prize money compared to last year’s men’s World Cup in Qatar. FIFA has said that it is aiming to achieve equal prize money by the next edition of the men’s and women’s World Cup in 2026 and 2027 respectively. Elsewhere, the England Women’s team has taken its pay dispute with the Football Association (FA) public. The running dispute is over bonus payments to cover the World Cup.
The Fair Game Index has revealed in its latest update that 52% of clubs in the top four leagues of English football have a negative net worth. The Fair Game Index rated the top 92 clubs in the pyramid through 80 different touchpoints across four criteria: Financial Sustainability, Good Governance, Equality Standards and Good Governance. The organisation released a video detailing its latest findings.
Since World Athletics launched its sustainability strategy in 2020, the governing body has highlighted the efforts of fellow sporting organisations in terms of sustainability. In 2021, the Oslo Bislett Games was celebrated by World Athletics for becoming one of the world’s most sustainable one-day athletics competition after its long-term association with a fossil fuel company. World Athletics also shone a spotlight on a low-emission trainer from manufacturer ASICS that was launched in 2022, and is on the look-out for more initiatives.
Image: Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash