Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) has been nominated for the 2024 BBC Green Sport Awards, after facilitating the inaugural ‘Green Games’ earlier this year.
The PFA has been nominated in the Elite Organisation of the Year category alongside Paris 2024, World Rugby, ExtremeE and World Athletics for introducing the Green Games as a way of bringing climate and sustainability into the A-Leagues and into the conversation on football pitches.
The Green Games focused on reducing carbon pollution, offsetting unavoidable emissions, introducing new sustainable practices at clubs, and raising awareness about the relationship between climate change and football.
The initiative coincided with the release of ‘Stoppage Time: A PFA Report on the A-Leagues and Climate Change’, which examined football’s impact on climate in Australia and New Zealand.
Both Green Games were devised by the PFA’s group of climate-conscious players, ‘Our Greener Pitch’, which includes players from across the A-Leagues and Australia’s national teams.
The first of those matches took place in March and April, where Canberra United hosted Wellington Phoenix at McKellar Park in the A-League Women, before Brisbane Roar took on Newcastle Jets in the A-League Men at Suncorp Stadium.
“The Green Games are an awesome first step that we can take as a club. Also, as a league, it’s going to be really good for the future. As climate change becomes more of an issue, it’s an opportunity for us as athletes to use our platform and showcase it to our fans,” former Canberra defender and member of Our Greener Pitch Emma Ilijoski said.
“We know that it’s not going to be an easy change straight away. But whatever we can do to help, it has to start somewhere.”
Brisbane’s Scott Neville – who is also part of the Our Greener Pitch initiative – spoke about some of the initiatives the club brought into place to help protect the environment and embrace the Green Games concept.
“I think that shows the open mind set of Zac (Anderson) and Kaz (Patafta) at Brisbane,” Neville said in April.
“They were very open to it, and they were open to Pride Round. They jumped on board and that’s good for not only the community but good for the planet.
“At training, we have separate bins now that we recycle properly. We’re looking at installing some filtered waters and getting on board with a company that would give us water bottles, and that’s just a small change, so if we can save as much plastic as possible and leading up to this game [that would be great].”
The winners of the third annual BBC Green Sport Awards will be announced on the BBC Sport website and app on Monday, October 7.
