Los Angeles or Chesterfield? San Diego or Salford?
The pre-season destinations of 20 Premier League clubs may be varied, but the issue remains the same – the impact of so many flights.
Half (10) of the clubs have flown to the United States for friendlies; three have travelled to the Far East and the rest are in Europe and the UK.
Manchester United’s pre-season schedule sees them flying almost 13,000 miles to play fixtures in Norway, Scotland, and across the US. Chelsea and Spurs are also expected to fly in excess of 12,000 miles.
In contrast, Everton will fly the least, with just one fixture outside the UK in the Republic of Ireland.
Several clubs are also playing games against neighbouring non-league clubs, which helps provide much-needed income to make the football pyramid more sustainable and boost the local economy. Southampton play Eastleigh, West Ham play Dagenham, Villa play Walsall and Palace play Crawley.
Spurs and Newcastle also played an exhibition fixture in May – three days after the season finished – for which they both flew to Melbourne, Australia, a game Alan Shearer described as “madness”. Add in those air miles and both teams will have travelled in excess of 30,000 air miles in the close-season, equivalent to more than once around the globe, to play in non-competitive matches.
Newcastle and Spurs both have a target to be halve emissions by 2030 and be Net Zero by 2040, while Manchester United and Chelsea are in process of establishing an emissions reduction plan.
Net Zero requires the reduction and removal of all ‘non-essential emissions’ – so are these games essential?