Don’t take my home: football fans asked to unite for nature with WWF at Euro 2024 - WWF
- WWF is launching a new campaign for Euro 2024, asking football fans to unite and stand up for nature with a fresh take on famous chant ‘Don’t take me home’.
- While all eyes are on the Euros this month, every 30 seconds an area of Amazon rainforest larger than a football pitch will be destroyed.
- WWF is calling on football fans to come together and help stop deforestation and the destruction of nature in the Amazon as research shows climate change and extreme weather could also impact the beautiful game.
6 June 2024 – WWF is launching a new campaign for Euro 2024 with a twist on famous chant ‘Don’t take me home’. The environmental organisation is calling on football fans to get behind their Amazon Appeal throughout the tournament, helping to stop the destruction of the rainforest and prevent the impacts of climate change and extreme weather on football, people, and wildlife around the world.
With all eyes fixed on the green grass of the pitch for Euro 2024 this summer, nature remains in freefall as global leaders, businesses, and human activity fail the world’s forests on a catastrophic scale. While fans avidly watch the Euros, every 30 seconds an area of Amazon rainforest larger than a football pitch will be destroyed.
Under the combined pressures of climate change and deforestation, the Amazon rainforest is approaching an irreversible tipping point, meaning that if just 5% more tree cover is destroyed, the forest is likely to decay, dry out and die. This means we will lose the Amazon as we know it, and football could follow.
The Climate Coalition has found that extreme heat and rainfall cause an estimated 62,500 amateur matches to be delayed or cancelled each year. And professional teams are not exempt, as by 2050, an estimated 39 of the 92 stadiums in the top four leagues of English football will be at high risk of multiple climate hazards, such as drought, flooding, and windstorms. In a recent interview with the BBC, Cambridge United groundskeeper of 45 years, Ian Darler, described the weather over the last 12 months as “exceptional” and “scary” adding that “'heavy rain in recent months had made it difficult for him to get training pitches ready for next season”.