AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin It’s time to issue another red card — for private jets at the FIFA World Cup.
During the month-long tournament, a great deal of scrutiny focused on the excessive private jet consumption by FIFA president Gianni Infantino. He flew an estimated 60,400 miles on a Gulfstream luxury jet provided by World Cup sponsor Qatar Airways, spewing almost 600 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
But Infantino wasn’t the only one committing a foul. Over 92,000 private jets flew in and out of World Cup host cities during the days around matches, according to a new tracking system created by the Institute for Policy Studies. This contributed over 147 kilotons of excess carbon emissions, the equivalent of driving 34,000 gas-guzzling cars for a year.
Rutherford, N.J., the host for the finals and seven other matches, experienced the most private jet pollution, with 21,289 private jets generating 39.4 kilotons of excess carbon emissions.
The new Private Jet Emission Tracker measured the carbon pollution from private jets touching down in match-host cities and contrasted it with activity on similar dates over five previous years, documenting the additional spike in carbon dioxide emission during World Cup matches.
Compounding the injustice, ordinary fans and the flying public subsidize the pollution spewing activity of the high-flying private jet class. Private jets don’t chip in their fair share of the cost of airspace, let alone their environmental impact. And last year, the U.S. Congress slathered on more tax breaks for private jets and their ultra-wealthy users.
Ordinary fans and those traveling on commercial flights pay a 7.5 percent ticket tax. This revenue contributes to airport infrastructure and services, along with other taxpayer dollars and fees. Private jets avoid most of these fees, shifting the costs onto everyone else. Private jets and other forms of non-commercial aviation account for 16 percent of flights but only chip in 2 percent of the costs of operating their air traffic system.
The private jet lobby, led by the National Business Aviation Association, have lobbied Congress to keep the subsidies flowing. As part of the President’s 2025 budget bill, private jets secured additional tax breaks, including a provision allowing corporations to expense 100 percent of the purchase of a private jet in one year — that could mean $20 million or more in tax deductions in one year on a single luxury jet purchase. In contrast, most businesses buying vehicles, trucks or equipment will deduct those costs over five years. Other FAA changes have enabled private jets to stiff local airport operators of basic use fees.
These tax breaks don’t even address the biggest subsidy — the ability of private jets to avoid any responsibility for the health and environmental costs of their pollution impacts.
It was a close call as the World Cup final match bumped up against stifling heat and a shroud of wildfire smoke that blanketed the eastern U.S. If that match had been played a day or two earlier, we would have been watching Spain defeat defending champion Argentina through a smoky haze. Fortunately for the players, fans, and public, a thunderstorm scrubbed the air the night before the finals.
These pollution conditions should be juxtaposed with images of extremely wealthy fans arriving in thousands of private jets, the most pollution intensive form of transport, being chauffeured to MetLife Stadium in black SUVs and escorted to their private boxes.
Research shows that wildfires are made worse by global climate change, as forests dry out and atmospheric rain cycles are disrupted. Human-caused climate change — to which private jet setters are huge contributors — is driving increased wildfire and smoke that all of us across the U.S. and in many parts of the globe are experiencing real time.
In our assessment, “Red Card for Private Jets at the FIFA World Cup,” we document the excessive emissions and the costs to everyone else. We call on FIFA to ban private jets at matches and live up to its pledge to be carbon neutral by 2040.
FIFA should also stop designing tournaments that span continents and cater to the ultra-wealthy private jet class and not to ordinary fans. The 2030 FIFA World Cup will be played in six different countries, with most matches in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. But in honor of the World Cup’s 100th anniversary, the opening matches will be played in the South American nations of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.
FIFA is clearly competing to produce the world’s most polluting sport competition. They must do more to protect the players, the fans, and our planet. The World Cup belongs to everyone, not just the private jet class.
Chuck Collins is director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, where he co-edits Inequality.org.
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