By Robbie Butler
While England exited the 2026 World Cup last night, the Three Lions will still play the full complement of 8 games. The Bronze Medal game will be held Saturday night in Miami, Florida. It will be England's second visit to Miami in recent days and bring the curtain down on their trip to the United States, which also included a short stay in Mexico.
The full schedule is as follows. England played Croatia at Dallas Stadium (June 17), Ghana at Boston Stadium (June 23), Panama at New York/New Jersey Stadium (June 27), DR Congo at Atlanta Stadium (July 1), Mexico at Mexico City Stadium (July 6), Norway at Miami Stadium (July 11), and Argentina in the semi-final at Atlanta Stadium (July 15), and after the semi-final defeat to Argentina, they now head back to the Miami Stadium to meet France.
Plot those eight fixtures on a map and the scale of the undertaking becomes clear. Measured venue to venue as the crow flies, England's itinerary covers some 10,100 km (about 6,300 miles, from Texas up to New England, down the eastern seaboard to Atlanta, across the border to the altitude of Mexico City, and finally a shuttle between Miami and Atlanta to close out the tournament.
But that figure is only the floor.
In reality, England based themselves in Kansas City for the duration of the tournament, training at Swope Soccer Village and flying out to each fixture from the middle of the country. The location was chosen precisely because it is central, an attempt to keep travel demands down across a tournament sprawled over three countries and 16 host cities. The irony is that a hub-and-spoke itinerary roughly doubles the distance flown. A return trip from Kansas City to each of England's eight fixtures works out at somewhere between 23,500 and 25,600 km (roughly 14,600 to 15,900 miles), depending on whether the squad returned to base between the semi-final and Saturday's bronze medal match or flew directly from Atlanta to Miami. Add the transatlantic legs to get the party there and home again, and England's World Cup will have involved around 40,000 km of flying - the circumferenceof the Earth roughly
What does that mean in emissions terms? Precise figures would require England's actual flight logs, but a reasonable estimate for in-tournament shuttling alone accounts for roughly 200-250 tonnes of CO2, with the transatlantic round trip adding perhaps 140 tonnes more.
And the team is the smallest part of the story. Every squad at this expanded 48-team tournament faces a version of the same itinerary. Backroom staff, equipment freight and media operations travel separately. Most significantly of all, the tens of thousands of England supporters who criss-crossed North America to follow the side, many on long-haul flights from the UK for individual matches, will have generated emissions that dwarf the team's own by orders of magnitude.
None of this is unique to England, and little of it was avoidable once FIFA settled on a three-nation, continent-spanning format. A full account of all travel and emmission can be found in our European Sport Management Quarterly paper here.
While England exited the 2026 World Cup last night, the Three Lions will still play the full complement of 8 games. The Bronze Medal game will be held Saturday night in Miami, Florida. It will be England's second visit to Miami in recent days and bring the curtain down on their trip to the United States, which also included a short stay in Mexico.
The full schedule is as follows. England played Croatia at Dallas Stadium (June 17), Ghana at Boston Stadium (June 23), Panama at New York/New Jersey Stadium (June 27), DR Congo at Atlanta Stadium (July 1), Mexico at Mexico City Stadium (July 6), Norway at Miami Stadium (July 11), and Argentina in the semi-final at Atlanta Stadium (July 15), and after the semi-final defeat to Argentina, they now head back to the Miami Stadium to meet France.
Plot those eight fixtures on a map and the scale of the undertaking becomes clear. Measured venue to venue as the crow flies, England's itinerary covers some 10,100 km (about 6,300 miles, from Texas up to New England, down the eastern seaboard to Atlanta, across the border to the altitude of Mexico City, and finally a shuttle between Miami and Atlanta to close out the tournament.
But that figure is only the floor.
In reality, England based themselves in Kansas City for the duration of the tournament, training at Swope Soccer Village and flying out to each fixture from the middle of the country. The location was chosen precisely because it is central, an attempt to keep travel demands down across a tournament sprawled over three countries and 16 host cities. The irony is that a hub-and-spoke itinerary roughly doubles the distance flown. A return trip from Kansas City to each of England's eight fixtures works out at somewhere between 23,500 and 25,600 km (roughly 14,600 to 15,900 miles), depending on whether the squad returned to base between the semi-final and Saturday's bronze medal match or flew directly from Atlanta to Miami. Add the transatlantic legs to get the party there and home again, and England's World Cup will have involved around 40,000 km of flying - the circumferenceof the Earth roughly
What does that mean in emissions terms? Precise figures would require England's actual flight logs, but a reasonable estimate for in-tournament shuttling alone accounts for roughly 200-250 tonnes of CO2, with the transatlantic round trip adding perhaps 140 tonnes more.
And the team is the smallest part of the story. Every squad at this expanded 48-team tournament faces a version of the same itinerary. Backroom staff, equipment freight and media operations travel separately. Most significantly of all, the tens of thousands of England supporters who criss-crossed North America to follow the side, many on long-haul flights from the UK for individual matches, will have generated emissions that dwarf the team's own by orders of magnitude.
None of this is unique to England, and little of it was avoidable once FIFA settled on a three-nation, continent-spanning format. A full account of all travel and emmission can be found in our European Sport Management Quarterly paper here.
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