EURO 2020 fans to fork out £800 on flights for 6,000 mile trip as UEFA’s green policy comes at a price
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Football fans will splash out almost £800 and fly 6,000 miles across Europe to follow their country at EURO 2020– despite UEFAs pledge to go green.
Fans spending more on flights for EURO 2020
In total, supporters from the 24 nations will be travelling more than 35,000 miles – as far as one and half times around the world.
New data from EURO 2020 analysts PitchInvasion.net shows this is an increase on EURO 2016 where fans would have flown just over 33,000 miles to get to matches across host nation France.
But at what cost is this new environmentally friendly approach affecting fans?
Switzerland fans have the longest journey of the group stages this summer travelling more than 6,000 miles across Europe and fronting a total bill of £775.
While Welsh fans have potentially the most expensive and time consuming single trip when travelling from Cardiff to Baku in Azerbaijan with a £400 flight and two stops on the way, taking approximately 13 hours.
On average, a fan will spend £338 on flights and travel almost 1800 miles if they want to watch their nation’s group stage matches.
UEFA’s pledge to go green
The EUROs this summer will mark the tournament’s 60th anniversary and in commemoration have matches played in 12 nations across Europe.
Six of these nations – including England – will be hosts and play all of their games in their home country.
UEFA have said this will help with the carbon footprint left by football fans and help make the tournament as environmentally friendly as possible.
President Aleksander Ceferin has also announced several investments to offset carbon emissions such as planting 600,000 trees across the host countries, building only one new stadium compared to four in 2016 and other renewable energy projects.
Carbon emissions slashed despite flying further
It is predicted fans will produce 405,000 tonnes of carbon over the four week tournament, of which 132,000 tonnes is estimated to come from flights for group stage matches and a minimum estimate of 55,000 tonnes during the rest of the tournament***, PitchInvasion.net can reveal.
This is much better than World Cup 2018 in Russia, which saw a total of 2.1m tonne of carbon dioxide produced – 1.6million was from air travel.
And considerably less than the 539,000 tonnes of carbon produced by fans at EURO 2016, of which 220,000 was from air miles with more shorter trips to and from France.
|
EURO 2020 Team |
Group stage distance (miles) |
Cost of journey to all nation’s group games |
CO2 emissions per fan (kg) |
|
Austria |
2742 |
£257.00 |
507.27 |
|
Belgium |
2586 |
£481.00 |
478.41 |
|
Croatia |
1199 |
£130.00 |
221.815 |
|
Czech Republic |
1238 |
£143.00 |
229.03 |
|
Denmark |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
England |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
France |
782 |
£322.00 |
144.67 |
|
Finland |
1262 |
£406.00 |
233.47 |
|
Germany |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
Italy |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
Netherlands |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
Poland |
2562 |
£313.00 |
473.97 |
|
Portugal |
2240 |
£371.00 |
414.4 |
|
Russia |
708 |
£120.00 |
130.98 |
|
Spain |
0 |
£0.00 |
0 |
|
Sweden |
2136 |
£188.00 |
395.16 |
|
Switzerland |
6000 |
£776.00 |
1110 |
|
Turkey |
2794 |
£345.00 |
516.89 |
|
Ukraine |
2240 |
£259.00 |
414.4 |
|
Wales |
4540 |
£622.00 |
839.9 |
|
Hungary |
350 |
64.75 |
|
|
Slovakia |
716 |
132.46 |
|
|
Scotland |
738 |
136.53 |
|
|
North Macedonia |
1130 |
209.05 |
|
|
Total |
35963 |
£335.00 |
6653.155 |
Estimated minimum total CO2 emissions for flights during group stage for all 24 teams – 132,000 tonnes (tCO2e)
-
Accumulative miles per team for the group stage have been calculated by adding together travel from the capital city of a nation and then flight distances to the three host cities. A return flight or future matches have not been factored into the estimate.
-
CO2 emissions per passenger has been worked out based on 0.185kg of CO2 emissions per passenger per mile on a Boeing 737-400 (115g per 1km 185g per mile via https://www.carbonindependent.org/22.html)
-
Cost of flights are taken from the cheapest direct flights available on February 18th, giving enough time to reach the game. If no available flights, next best option was chosen.
**Full breakdown of journey and flight costs can be sent over
