Infantino stirs controversy with intensive flights.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been a very busy man during the World Cup, but his insatiable thirst for watching as many matches as possible is causing discontent among environmental advocates who question his indifference to climate change amid his numerous travels.

Mexico City, Guadalajara, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Kansas City, Houston: The Italian-Swiss has made shuttle trips on his private jet to appear in the stands 10 times in seven days.

His excessive use of the private jet from Qatar Airways is not a new issue: In September 2024, the investigative site "Gosimar" revealed that he had used the plane to cover a distance of 600,000 kilometers (372,822 miles) over the past three years.

However, the expanded 2026 World Cup, which will be held for the first time with 48 teams across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, meaning an increase in the number of matches from 64 to 104, has doubled the impact of Infantino's travel habits.

This week, the French company "Greenly," which specializes in carbon footprint assessments, stated: "Just one hour on this plane emits about what an average person emits in an entire year."

If Infantino visits two cities a day until the end of the Round of 16, and then attends the last eight matches, "Greenly" estimates that he will produce "a defensive range of between 300 and 500 tons of CO2 from his plane alone" throughout the tournament.

The French company says this is equivalent to "the annual footprint of about 35 to 55 French people."

FIFA defended the president's travel by emphasizing that its officials choose between commercial and private flights "based on what is more efficient and cost-effective," and that the organization covers travel costs in all cases.

David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne, told AFP that FIFA has created a "sustainability paradox."

He added: "By reusing existing NFL stadiums that are geographically spread across a continent, FIFA has created a model that structurally relies on high-emission air travel."

He continued: "When leadership sets a precedent by traveling between matches on a private jet, it completely reflects the broader systemic issue."

The way FIFA has organized the current edition of the World Cup "normalizes excessive travel, while simultaneously shifting the costs of transportation and carbon burdens to host regions and fans."