Climate hazards including winds up to 120 mile per hour and two metre flood depths threatening women’s football, new data reveals

• New research looks at climate threats to pitches where women play over the next 25+ years.
• Three-quarters of pitches used by the top three tiers of English women’s football and the SWPL are projected to be highly exposed to multiple climate threats.
• Across England 77% of clubs are projected to be exposed to high drought, 52% to high levels of heatwave and 17% to high levels of flooding.

These challenges look set to worsen. For example, 44% of all postponed games in Birmingham County FA’s Women and Girls Pathway were called off because of pitch conditions, in comparison to 18% the previous season.

The power of climate change mitigation and prevention:

Those pitches expected to be most at risk may not, of course, suffer the most climate-related damage, if clubs are monitoring their risk exposure and - if needed - have a response plan and appropriate protections in place. The WPLL, for example, has had only one match cancelled since the summer of 2023, thanks to their pitch protection initiatives.

However, given the increasing climate threat and accompanying commercial risks for clubs, it’s critical that footballing organisations put robust plans in place to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the impact of climate change. For example, supporting fans to adopt climate-friendly habits, including saving kit from landfill or travelling greener; reducing waste and non-renewable energy use; or even exploring the benefits of using green roofs and walls to help combat climate change.

Daniel Keir, climate resilience specialist from Zurich Resilience Solutions, commented: “Football clubs are increasingly having to cope with unpredictable weather, but this research demonstrates just how much climate change may impact the game in the future. Clubs should consider taking proactive action now to minimise disruption and protect their stadiums, training facilities, people and fans. Taking action sooner rather than later may help prevent a big repair bill in the future.”

Sarah Jacobs, from Green Football’s Great Save, said: “This new research highlights the urgent need for football to turbo-charge its efforts to tackle climate change. Football has a huge opportunity to lead the charge, by shining a light on the issue, prioritising sustainability in business decisions and supporting millions of fans to make small but important changes in our everyday lives.”

The research was undertaken as part of Green Football’s Great Save, the world’s biggest climate-football campaign, which brings together the football community - fans, players, clubs, leagues, grassroots teams and schools - to take action to tackle climate change and protect the future of the game.

The campaign is focusing on the estimated 100,000 tonnes of sportswear that ends up in UK landfills every year, taking decades to break down and contributing to methane emissions—a powerful greenhouse gas which fuels climate change. Throughout the campaign, fans, clubs and players are helping to make the great save, by donating, selling or reusing kit instead of throwing it away.

In recognition that more work needs to be done to improve pitches across the grassroots game, The FA has committed to ensuring 12,000 quality grass pitches and 300 more 3G pitches, to be delivered by the Football Foundation by 2028.

Notes to editors:

^[1]Rapid Transition Alliance: Playing against the clock (2020), p9.

• See here for full Zurich Resilience Solutions research methodology and here for the pitch locations analysed.
• The physical climate hazard analysis carried out by Zurich Resilience Solutions incorporates Zurich-developed climate hazard data for each of the grounds where the 60 football clubs in the Barclays Women Super League, the Barclays Championship League, the FA Women’s National League Northern and Southern Premier divisions and the Scottish Women’s Premier League play. The analysis is based on the SSP2-4.5 climate scenario and the medium-term time horizon (averaged over 2045-2075). SSP2-4.5 was chosen because it is a middle-road scenario. SSP2-4.5 corresponds to a best estimate of 2.0°C warming by 2041-2060, and 2.7°C warming by 2081-2100.
• The Premier League Stadium Fund awards capital grants to clubs to support improvement of their stadium facilities for players, supporters and officials. Funding is available to clubs who play in Tiers 1 to 4 of the Women’s Football Pyramid for a series of improvements and repairs, outlined here.
• The FA's five-year sustainability strategy, sets out the organisation's plan to make a positive impact on the environment and the communities it serves. See here for more information on the FA’s grassroots strategy.
• There has been significant investment from the Premier League to help mitigate weather impacts to playing surfaces to ensure fixture delivery in the WPL including at Everton (Walton Hall Park), Crystal Palace (Sutton United), London City Lionesses (Bromley), Liverpool (St Helens), Chelsea (Kingsmeadow) and Lewes (Dripping Pan).
• WPLL have brought in regulations including a sustainability/environmental policy, a requirement for clubs to have frost covers and pitch quality metrics to report against. The WPLL has invested in pitch protection to support clubs in fixture delivery in extreme weathers and has worked to develop new guidance for clubs planning new stadia, to ensure mitigations are in place for future climate risks.