The FIFA World Cup is brought to you by Saudi oil. These fans and players want to stop it

Frank Huisingh has mixed feelings about the 2026 World Cup.

On the one hand, he's excited to root for his home country, the Netherlands, and watch underdog teams from smaller nations show what they're made of on the world stage.

But he's not excited to see those same players toiling in brutally hot temperatures while surrounded by billboards for the world's largest corporate oil producer.

"I'm a football fan and I want my sport to do the right thing," Huisingh, founder of the advocacy group Fossil Free Football, told What On Earth host Laura Lynch. "I don't want my sport to be a broadcaster for the messages of oil companies."

Fossil Free Football is calling on FIFA, soccer's global governing body, to end its partnership with Aramco, Saudi Arabia's majority state-owned oil producer.

It's part of a larger movement of advocates, doctors and players demanding FIFA cut ties with the fossil fuel industry, which they say is adversely impacting players' health and threatening the future of the sport itself.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, FIFA said it has implemented strategies to reduce carbon emissions at the World Cup and protect players and staff from heat. It defended its corporate sponsorships and vowed to invest 90 per cent of revenue from the event "back into the global game."

"This record level of reinvestment helps ensure football can be organized and developed in more than 100 countries where it would otherwise not be possible — underpinned by commercial partnerships, including those with global partners such as Aramco," FIFA said.

FIFA has pledged to reduce its carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2030 and reach net zero by 2040. But a report published last year by Scientists for Global Responsibility estimates this year's men's World Cup will be the most polluting in its 95-year history.

The authors say this is partly because of the sheer size and scope of the event, which will see more than a million fans travel internationally to watch 48 teams play in 16 cities spread across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Another key factor, they say, is that it will generate visibility and profits for Aramco, which is widely cited as the world's largest and most profitable carbon emitter and is 98.5 per cent owned by Saudi Arabia.

Aramco is responsible for more than four per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1965 and has emitted the equivalent of 27 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2018 and 2030, according to the environmental organization Climate Earth.

"And that gets the biggest stage the world has, which is the Men's World Cup," Huisingh said.

Aramco declined to comment for this story.

At the same time, this year's World Cup is expected to be among the hottest.

Researchers at Queen's University Belfast predict potentially dangerous heat levels at the majority of the tournament's scheduled games and warn that will harm players' health.

FIFA says it has a "heat mitigation" model in place that includes limiting matches during the hottest part of the day, regular three-minute hydration breaks for players, shaded areas and misting stations at venues and additional substitutions so players can rest between games.

But some health-care professionals say it doesn't go far enough. A coalition of 21 doctors and scientists signed an open letter to FIFA last month calling for stronger policies to protect players and fans from the heat, including mandatory cooling periods and a lower temperature threshold for postponing games.

The letter also called for FIFA to ban fossil fuel industry sponsorship, which it called "a conflict of interest with the protection of player welfare."

"Sports are very important. They do bring real health benefits for people," said signatory Dr. Samantha Green, a Toronto family physician and president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

"But oil companies, fossil fuel companies more broadly, are causing climate change. And it's very clear burning fossil fuels is what is causing our planet to heat up, and that's actually threatening the very sports that they are associating themselves with."

Dutch athlete Tessel Middag is one of more than 130 professional women's soccer players who signed an open letter in 2024 criticizing FIFA's decision to partner with Saudi Aramco.

Activism, she says, comes naturally to women's soccer players, who have always had to fight for their place in the sport.

FIFA's four-year partnership with Aramco includes the 2027 Women's World Cup.

"We feel like the good work that we and our predecessors, the women that came before us have done, would be dishonoured by partnerships such as the one that was announced with Saudi Aramco," Middag said.

Middag says she's against Aramco's role in climate change, but her opposition to the sponsorship goes even deeper.

"It was their track record when it comes to human rights as well," she said.

She pointed to Saudi Arabia's increase in executions, male guardianship laws that restrict women's freedom, the imprisonment of women's rights activist Manahel al-Otaibi and a law banning homosexuality, punishable by death.

She says players should have a role in determining FIFA's sponsors.

"We, ultimately, as players, are the ones playing in stadiums where there's big billboards with Saudi Aramco around it."

The fossil fuel industry's ties to sports go beyond the FIFA-Aramco partnership.

According to a report by the New Weather Institute, oil-and-gas companies were spending an estimated $5.6 billion US on sports sponsorships as of 2024, a practice critics call "greenwashing."

Huisingh says it's no coincidence that this comes as people are anxious about the climate crisis and turning to alternative energy sources.

"These oil companies know that. And they also know what we like most. We like sports," he said.

"If you see how excited fans are for their country, big or small, to go to the World Cup, you know that if you are part of the World Cup, you can directly reach the hearts of fans worldwide."