A sustainable future for European football: UEFA's Sustainable Infrastructure Guidelines

Earlier in 2022, UEFA created the Football Sustainability Strategy 2030, which listed Infrastructure Sustainability as one of the eleven Policies the organisation wants to improve. The ambition of this Policy is “to raise the bar for European football infrastructure by setting criteria and sharing best practices for a new generation of sustainable football venues.”

For UEFA, Infrastructure Sustainability means creating guidelines for sustainable football venues, promoting and applicating criteria across UEFA’s governance and sharing knowledge about best practices. This all came together in a working document, which the Johan Cruijff ArenA helped create and realise.

Launch event

The publication launched on November 16 at a special event in Mainz, Germany, and was opened by Michele Uva, the UEFA director of Football & Social Responsability. The event had multiple panels and discussions on sustainable football venues and facilities. One panel took place with John Ceattie of the Emirates Stadium (Arsenal Stadium), Claire Poole of Sport Positive, Pietro Chiabrera of UEFA and Sander van Stiphout of Johan Cruijff ArenA Innovation. You can rewatch the launch event here.

Inspiring

The Sustainable Infrastructure Guidelines should help inspire and support football stakeholders across Europe. The working document has a database of best practices, a set of references to examples, future development ideas and tools for specific topics such as purpose, location, design, and more. It will be shared by UEFA across the European football ecosystem and will actively support stakeholders to help with implementation.

The document was created with the support of external experts such as architects, clubs, operators and academics, as well as employees from UEFA at Football and Social Responsibility, Football Operations and EU Office. It will be updated on a regular basis to stay relevant to the latest trends around technology, legislation and expectations.