RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Football's climate change hypocrisy is in a league of its own
When I saw that Sky Sports was screening a documentary called Footballs Toughest Opponent, I thought to myself: Ill have some of that. No doubt theyd dug out archive footage of Chelseas Chopper Harris, Norman Bites Yer Legs Hunter, and Dave Mackay picking up Billy Bremner by the throat. We might even be treated to Sky pundit s vicious, career-ending, flying drop-kick on s dad, arguably the nastiest tackle ever. Thats if you discount the famous photograph of Vinnie Jones putting the squeeze on by grabbing what is euphemistically described in football circles as his lower abdomen. Then there was Rangers striker Duncan Fergusons notorious headbutt on Raith Rovers defender John McStay, which resulted in a three-month prison sentence in Barlinnie for assault. All of these hard men have passed into football folklore, so I assumed they were bound to be included. No such luck. I should have known better. After all, these days Sky Sports is the official broadcast partner of BLM and jumps on every passing woke bandwagon with all the subtlety of Sunderlands Lee Cattermole taking out anyone who got in his way. So you wont be surprised to learn that Footballs Toughest Opponent isnt any of the above. It is, wait for it, climate change. The fashionably attired presenter in skinny strides, untucked shirt and a Peaky Blinders haircut helpfully explained that global warming was now right up there with homophobia and racism as one of the greatest threats to the Beautiful Game. An Australian Kylie Minogue lookalike, who apparently plays for Southamptons womens team, said: Its the World Cup Final and its the last minute of extra time. A Guardian reader from central casting delivered the apocalyptic warning that a quarter of the grounds in Englands top four divisions were in danger of being under water by 2050. He was being interviewed in the dugout at the home of the legendary Tadcaster Albion, from the Pitching In Northern Premier League, inconveniently situated on the bank of the River Wharfe in North Yorkshire, which flooded in January 2021. Thats what tends to happen when you put a football pitch on low-lying land next to a river. When I used to turn out for the Surrey Herald on Sunday mornings, our home ground at Laleham Common, right by the Thames, was frequently submerged. And that was in the early to mid-1980s, long before global warming had been invented. A similar watery fate now awaits riverside clubs Fulham, Chelsea and West Ham, who play at the former Olympic Stadium in Stratford. As for coastal Southampton and Grimsby Town, forget it. They might just as well trying playing their home games in Atlantis. The coming tsunamis arent the only existential hazards on the horizon, either. We were also told that extreme temperatures in summer threatened not just the wellbeing of players, who would be felled by exhaustion, but also posed a clear and present danger to spectators by exposing them to heatstroke and air pollution. The programme chose to illustrate this with pictures of thick smog . . . in China. This argument was somewhat undermined by the fact that, in Britain at least, we dont play football at the height of summer. We play cricket, which is regularly interrupted not by triple-digit (in old money) temperatures but by torrential rain. If the football authorities are seriously concerned about the game being played in Saharan-style heat, they wouldnt have decided to stage this years World Cup in oil-rich Qatar, where real feel temperatures in November hover around the low 90s. The programme did briefly acknowledge that some people might level accusations of hypocrisy at footballs highlighting the dangers of climate change. Too right we will. Most Premier League sides fly to away games, rather than letting the coach or the train take the strain, as they used to in days gone by. But they protest that with sometimes three games a week they have to fly, or players would have too little time to recover. Fair enough. But that doesnt explain why so many players charter private planes in the same way the rest of us take Ubers. How many tiresome, boastful pictures have we seen of footballers dripping with bling, posing for Instagram from their leather NetJets armchair as they take a quick midweek break to the Algarve? And what about the gas-guzzling, pimped-up SUVs, the Escalades and top-of-the-Range Rovers, they drive to training? How does that help stave off the coming climate emergency? Hilarious statistics came thick and fast. My favourite was when the presenter claimed that the amount of clothing bought in Britain in a single month was the equivalent of a plane flying non-stop round the world 900 times. (I must remember to recite that at the upcoming dinner of the Useless Information Society.) Because of this, Dale Vince, the self-styled eco-warrior chairman of League One Forest Green Rovers a sort of New Age version of the Fast Shows Dave Angel in an intifada scarf has had his clubs replica kit made out of recycled plastic and coffee grounds. That should make all the difference. Wouldnt plain cotton be even more sustainable and planet-friendly? Perhaps he could persuade some of his fellow chairmen in the rapacious English Premier League to stop churning out three different, ludicrously expensive, Home, Away and Third change strips every season. Maybe that ghastly green Spurs kit was part of the clubs contribution to Net Zero. Still, Dale Vince argued that even if football couldnt comply 100 per cent with the green agenda, it was important everyone did something. For instance, the Brentford defender Ben Mee claimed his transfer from Burnley to West London had been carbon neutral. I couldnt quite work that one out, but it may have involved bunging someone a few quid to plant some trees somewhere. A Danish footballer said he insisted on wearing the symbolic Number 2 on his shirt, in recognition of the Paris accords target of limiting the rise in global temperatures (or was it emissions?) this century to a maximum two degrees. And there was me thinking it had something to do with the effect of the exclusively plant-based diet he was urging us to adopt. Funniest of the bunch was Southamptons manager, Ralph Hasenhuttl, who stressed that education was the key. He peppers his training sessons with non- football questions, designed to encourage his players to think about the climate challenges. On one occasion recently, he asked them to guess how many rotations of a windmill it would take to fully charge an electric car. I burst out laughing. You couldnt make it up. Herr Hasenhuttl would be better off teaching his players how to defend, since they shipped four against both Spurs and Man City and currently sit one point above the relegation zone. The bookies make Ralphie Baby the favourite for the next manager to be sacked. Look, call me a climate sceptic, but the ways the Saudis are splashing the cash in Newcastle, Wembley is more likely to be swamped by the Toon Army than a tsunami. So I can live without this latest outbreak of cynical virtue signalling by one of the most venal industries on earth. I dont watch football to be constantly lectured on everything from racism, to rainbow laces, to global warming. This weekend, the Premier League was back taking the knee again, a fatuous gesture begun in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer 4,000 miles away in Minnesota. They dont even take the knee at the Minnesota Vikings any more. That wont stop the EPL and Sky, though. One of the commentators I forget who said it was our duty to remind the world of the evils of racism, every day, every week, every month. No, it isnt. We pay our subscriptions to watch live sport, not to have to sit through endless performative moralising. Sky, ever since it was bought by superwoke American corporation Comcast, laps up this patronising tosh. Watching the No Room For Racism bumper which accompanied every action replay was like being smashed in the face with a frying pan every few minutes. Now they have taken it upon themselves to force-feed us their views on global warming. It can only be a matter of time before spectators at Premier League grounds are obliged to observe a minutes silence for some dried-up watering hole in the Kalahari Desert, allegedly caused by someone refusing to turn down their wood-burning stove in Kettering. Now Sky Sports has embraced the so-called climate emergency, how long before their pundits are issued with another ribbon or button to go with the array of badges which already make them look like Pearly Kings? Still, it all helps remind me why I cancelled my Spurs season tickets after 35 years. And why, as Ive told you before, I hate everything about football except the football.