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Climate change is an issue yielding much attention in the international football context, with initiatives from federations, and various efforts from environmental organizations We Play Green (WPG) is an international environmental organization aimed at mobilizing support for a green shift through football. Through collaborations with grassroots football clubs, international governing bodies in football and politics, and by strategic use of social media content, WPG works to challenge dominate practices and discourses on sustainability in football as well as local communities. This study investigates how WPG’s media content on environmentalism in football differs from media content by FIFA and UEFA, as governing bodies of international football. The aim is to examine how activism may produce counter-discourses that expands how issues related to climate change are framed in football. The study is based on a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 64 media texts considering environmental sustainability, published by FIFA, UEFA and WPG on their websites in 2021-2022. The findings suggest that all three organizations communicate a strong belief in football’s power to contribute towards environmentally sustainable practices, and a belief that cooperation is essential in order to achieve it. Furthermore, the problematizations and the solutions offered to the identified problems differed between WPG and the governing bodies. Here the analysis shows that FIFA and UEFA focuses on adjustments and gradual changes of current practices through new technology, while WPG focuses on radical changes in current practices, mindsets and political systems using communication and education as means for change.
