The Women’s EURO 2025 in Switzerland kicks off on 2 July 2025. Before the start of the tournament, at least 5 out of 16 national teams have confirmed they will be travelling within Switzerland by train or coach, thus opting for sustainable ways of transportation.
During the EURO 2024, UEFA already required teams to opt for sustainable transport by train or coach in Germany, as part of their goal to make the sporting event more sustainable. However, only two teams confirmed they would be doing so: Germany and Switzerland.
One year later, UEFA has once again put together a so-called Environmental, Social and Governance Strategy, requiring team to travel by train or coach within Switzerland. At about a week from the start of the tournament, five national teams have already confirmed they would indeed opt for sustainable travel within Switzerland: Germany, Portugal, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands.
“Women’s teams are committing this year to none or very limited flying upon arrival in their base camps in Switzerland. This shows a huge progress from last year’s men’s Eurocup. Back then, it was not just that teams were barely committing to use ground transport, most didn’t even seem to have considered it”, says Aiza Rodrigues Akhtar, Corporate Travel Campaigner at Transport & Environment, a European federation working in the field of transport and environment.
According to the final report of the EURO 2024 Sustainable mobility concept by the Umweltbundesamt (the environment agency of the German government), in 2024, transport represented 80% of the tournament’s climate footprint. While the majority of that amount is produced by fans, national teams can serve as an example, showing sports lovers around the world that alternative means of transportation exists and should indeed be used.
Teams are asked to do more
‘Travel Smart’, a global campaign led by Transport & Environment, is now asking UEFA to require more from the participating teams. The European federation advocates for UEFA to require teams travelling to and within the host country to do so by train or coach when the trips are below a certain distance or duration.
The federation has developed four different scenarios developed to show the impact such a policy would have. For example, asking all teams which can reach their destination in less than six hours by rail to take a train would reduce the tournament’s team transport emissions by 15%, while if all teams but Iceland were asked not to fly, reductions would be of up to 84%.
“Having a strong travel policy asking teams to travel by coach or rail when the destination is below a certain distance or duration is not wishful thinking. The French team, for example, has already increased the travelling time below which it will not fly. Such a policy would reward those teams that are already taking decisive steps while sending a clear message to football supporters all over the world,” said Aiza Rodrigues Akhtar.
During the EURO 2025 from 2 July until 27 July, 16 national teams will be competing against each other: Iceland, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Wales, the Netherlands, France, and England. While the matches will take place in eight different venues throughout Switzerland, two geographical group clusters have been created to optimise team travel. Moreover, a minimum of three rest days is guaranteed for every team between matches, meaning travelling by train or coach would be easily doable.
