Fifa urged to drop Saudi oil giant Aramco as activists target World Cup

As scorching temperatures beat down on World Cup soccer games across North America, climate activists – including former and current professional athletes – are calling for Fifa and other professional sporting organizations to cut ties with the oil and gas industry.“Sport, especially football, has the power to influence and inspire billions of people,” said David Wheeler, an English former professional footballer, who supports the campaign. “Fifa should be harnessing that power to do good.”This coming Sunday, protesters will demonstrate at or near four 2026 World Cup stadiums and seven other major sporting arenas, chanting and holding signs calling for an end to fossil fuel sponsorships.“People all over the world are watching the World Cup, which is a good reminder that we’re all in this together, that it’s one planet,” said Brent Suter, pitcher for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball and supporter of the campaign to end “sportswashing”. “It’s a good moment for a big message about the climate.”The protesters’ key target is Saudi Aramco, the exclusive energy sponsor for this year’s tournament, which is also the world’s largest corporate carbon emitter. Players have for years called on Fifa to drop the company as a sponsor, and in May, a group of health, climate science and sports experts signed an open letter highlighting the organization’s Aramco sponsorship, arguing that the “active promotion” of fossil fuels creates “a conflict of interest with the protection of player welfare”.“If you’ll excuse the pun, it’s a big swing, but that is what we want: we want them to drop Aramco and their other oil and gas sponsorship deals,” said Zan Dubin, lead organizer of the day of action. “In this kind of crisis, nobody should be advertising for fossil fuels.”Two of Sunday’s protests will be held outside World Cup matches at SoFi stadium in Los Angeles and Hard Rock stadium in Miami. Organizers are also planning demonstrations near three other 2026 World Cup venues in New Jersey, Seattle and Dallas.Fifa did not respond to a request for comment, but it has defended its Aramco sponsorship amid earlier criticism, saying in 2024 that it “values its partnership with Aramco and its many others commercial and rights partners”.“Fifa is an inclusive organization with many commercial partners also supporting other organizations in football and other sports,” the spokesperson said at the time. “Sponsorship revenues generated by Fifa are reinvested back into the game at all levels.”Aramco declined to comment on the protests, but its CEO has said the company’s 2026 World Cup sponsorship helps to “harness the power of sport to make an impact around the globe” and said such sponsorships “create pathways for opportunity, positively impact society and promote development at the grassroots level”. On its website, the firm also says: “This partnership aligns with our goal of providing reliable energy to communities around the world and inspire progress – both on the pitch and in society as a whole.”Sunday’s day of action will focus on not only Fifa, but also other sports organizations with fossil fuel-linked sponsors. In Los Angeles, California, and Cleveland, Ohio, for instance, demonstrators will demand local Major League Baseball teams cut ties with Phillips 66 and Marathon Petroleum, respectively. And in Portland, protesters will call for the Portland Timbers, a Major League Soccer team, to end their sponsorship deal with Bank of America, a top financier of fossil fuel projects around the world.Participants will include members of local chapters of the national environmental non-profit Sierra Club, senior-led climate advocacy group Third Act and environmental justice organization Hip Hop Caucus.The protests come as experts warn that this year’s tournament will probably be the hottest since the competition began nearly a century ago. Nearly all of this year’s World Cup host stadiums are experiencing more extreme heat during June and July than they did during previous North American World Cups, Climate Central, a research organization, found.By warming the planet, fossil fuel companies like Aramco are putting footballers and the sport itself at risk, Wheeler argued.“It’s a business that significantly worsens the climate crisis, forcing players to play in extreme heat risking their health, and reducing access to playing the game at a grassroots level due to erratic weather causing excessive drought or rainfall,” said Wheeler, who is becoming a sports psychologist.Fifa says it has taken steps to shield players, spectators and workers from the heat, scheduling many matches for late afternoon and evening hours, mandating regular hydration breaks and working with experts to develop extreme weather health protocols. But Wheeler believes high temperatures will still endanger athletes – and football itself.“Among Fifa’s core aims are to safeguard player welfare and the future of the game,” he said. By accepting Aramco funding, he added, “it is categorically failing in both.”