Although they are due to meet in the final of the Europa League this week, there isn’t another football club on the continent who’d look to either Manchester United or Tottenham as an idealised vision for a successful – even functional – football team.
The pair currently sit 16th and 17th respectively in the Premier League table. Neither side has won in their last five league fixtures. Over their most recent 20 Premier League games combined, they have mustered just two victories.
Managers Ruben Amorim and Ange Postecoglou both sit on shaky ground and the haphazard, spaff-money-up-the-wall recruitment policies the two clubs have diligently adhered to in recent seasons has left them light years behind the Premier League’s best sides in terms of squad quality.
Yet for all their incompetence on the field and in the transfer market, United and Spurs are, in fact, trailblazers when it comes to a matter that football fans consider of increasingly great importance.
According to a new study commissioned by climate-change charity Pledgeball in partnership with Champions League sponsors Mastercard, a staggering 81% of football fans want their clubs to take more action when it comes to combatting the impact of global warming and instituting policies to drive sustainability.
A survey conducted from a sample of 1,628 football supporters – made up of online questionnaire respondents, mailing list subscribers and in-person interviews with fans at last year’s Champions League final – found that 82% of football followers are concerned about climate change, in addition to the whopping percentage of fans who wish their teams would do more to fight it.
And while United and Spurs fans can rightly feel aggrieved about so many aspects of how their clubs are run, this is one area in which they are leading the way.
Or, rather, in United’s case it’s an area in which they intend to raise the bar.
The Red Devils recently announced ambitious plans for a new stadium to replace Old Trafford. When designs for the 100,000-seater arena were unveiled, they were greeted with ridicule for their striking resemblance to a circus top – a fitting home for what has been a clown show of a team for much of the past decade.
But within the plans there were details of how the new stadium will set high standards for sustainability.
The tent-like roof structure was the most eye-catching and divisive element of the 20-time champions’ as yet unnamed next home. (New Trafford? New Old Trafford? Let’s face it, it’ll more likely end up being called the Crypto.ai Megabowl or something.)
The so-called ‘umbrella roof’, however, will be equipped with solar panels and a rain-harvesting system to reduce the stadium’s reliance on non-renewable energy sources. The energy efficiency of the arena has been devised in order to align with Manchester’s 2038 carbon-neutral target.
“The stadium is contained by a vast umbrella, harvesting energy and rainwater, and sheltering a new public plaza that is twice the size of Trafalgar Square,” said Lord Norman Foster, founder and executive chairman of Foster + Partners, the firm commissioned to come up with the design.
“The outward-looking stadium will be the beating heart of a new sustainable district, which is completely walkable, served by public transport, and endowed by nature. It is a mixed-use miniature city of the future – driving a new wave of growth and creating a global destination that Mancunians can be proud of.”
And while United are talking a good game about the sustainability of their new stadium, Tottenham are very much walking the walk.
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium (they still haven’t found a buyer for those delicious naming rights) opened in 2019 and set a new standard for what’s possible when it comes to the sustainability of mega-arenas.
It is powered by 100% renewable electricity, sends zero waste to landfill and has eschewed single-use plastic water bottles in favour of recyclable cartons.
When the stadium was freshly finished, videos of their ingenious bottom-filling beer cups went viral. Well, not only are those space-age cups impressive for how rapidly and smoothly they fill, they are also part of a reusable beer cup scheme in operation at the ground.
It’s not just the drinks that are green at Spurs, either. The club commits to sourcing all food produce from within a 60-mile radius of their north London home, with an extensive plant-based offering, too.
All of this is with the aim of achieving net zero carbon neutrality as a club by 2040, a target towards with Tottenham claim to be on track.
So while for one of these clubs, Europa League success will only paper over the chasms of incompetence that have been on full display for several years on the pitch, there’s good work being done in and around their stadiums.
To learn more about Pledgeball and how you can pledge to help your club shoot up the sustainability standings, visit Pledgeball.org.
