By Anne Blythe
As the largest FIFA World Cup in history kicks off across North America, the most menacing wild card for the 48 competing countries might be the stifling summer heat.
Over the monthlong marathon leading up to the July 19 championship match in New Jersey, relentlessly high temperatures and humidity will put millions of soccer enthusiasts at risk. While elite athletes endure at least 90 minutes on the pitch, spectators, match officials and workers in many of the 16 stadiums across the U.S., Mexico and Canada could be highly vulnerable to heat-related illness and exacerbation of chronic health conditions.
Teams from Norway, Scotland and Germany have gotten a taste of the “wet blanket” extreme heat here at their base camps and training sites in Greensboro, Charlotte and Winston-Salem.
When Norway opened its practice to the public on June 10 at the UNC Greensboro soccer stadium, temperatures climbed close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit that afternoon. The next day, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory, which is based primarily on the heat index, or the “feels-like” temperature that takes humidity into account too.
As Ashley Ward, director of the Heat Policy Innovation Hub at the Duke University Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, will tell you, though, there’s a lot more than the number on an analog thermometer and humidity level to consider when thinking about heat safety. For years, Ward has been advocating for use of the wet bulb globe temperature, developed and used by the military for decades, as the standard measure for public heat safety.
“It incorporates not only air temperature and humidity, but also wind speed and solar radiation, and because of that it gives us a better predictor of when conditions outside are particularly dangerous to humans,” Ward told NC Health News. “It’s not just about getting hot. It’s also about how humid it is. Is the wind blowing or not blowing? Are there clouds in the sky, not in the sky? Are we standing on asphalt? Or are we standing on grass, and so forth?”
Is FIFA’s heat policy adequate?
FIFA, the worldwide governing organization for soccer (or football as most countries call the sport), uses wet bulb globe temperature to set parameters for postponing matches. Delays are considered when the wet bulb temperature hits 32 degrees Celsius, or 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit — a threshold that’s caused controversy among some scientists and players’ unions.
In an open letter to FIFA on May 13, 21 doctors, climate researchers and scientists from universities and research institutes here and abroad said FIFA’s heat safety protocols were highly inadequate and put players and spectators at severe risk. They wrote that science had shown more accurate wet bulb globe safety thresholds to be 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) for high exertion, 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 degrees Fahrenheit) for moderate exertion, 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) for light work and 33 degrees Celsius (91.4 degrees Fahrenheit) at rest.
FIFA protocols also rely on two mandatory three-minute hydration breaks midway through each half, but the scientists contend that neither that nor a wet bulb protocol that entrusts match postponement decisions to competition organizers are sufficient protections.
The scientists acknowledged that though professional athletes are likely to have “higher resilience compared to the baseline population,” it still “is impossible to justify” FIFA’s heat policy as adequate for health safety.
“We respectfully urge FIFA to adopt heat-management protocols that prioritize prevention over response, and that align with contemporary exercise physiology, occupational health principles, and duty-of-care standards expected in elite sport,” the scientists wrote.
The hydration breaks aren’t long enough, they contend, to sufficiently cool core body temperatures and therefore “the risk of exertional heat illness increases sharply.”
“Player health and safety must remain the non-negotiable foundation of football governance, and the heat risks for the upcoming World Cup make this question more urgent than ever,” the scientists added.
Although FIFA did not respond directly to the scientists’ letter, according to The New York Times, a spokesperson wrote in a statement the organization is “committed to protecting the health and safety of all players, referees, fans, volunteers and staff.”
‘Lean into it’
Ralph Vuono, chief business officer for the North Carolina Courage, the National Women’s Soccer League professional team based at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary, knows firsthand what it’s like to have to address extreme heat issues from the spectator side.
When Vuono moved to North Carolina from New Jersey about four years ago, he hadn’t yet started working for the Courage. But he quickly heard about the recent years’ record-setting extreme heat.
“All my neighbors, and the folks that I met when we moved down here, all said the same thing: ‘It’s ridiculously hot here in the summer,’” Vuono said. “It’s beautiful in the spring. It’s awesome in the fall. We get a little bit of a winter for about a month or so, but then the summer is really hot.
“So that narrative, that seed, was planted with me pretty early on.”
When he started working for the Courage about a year later, people in the organization had the same message: “It gets really hot here during the summer,” they told him. “Our stadium,” he said, “we don’t have the traditional canopies that you see at other soccer facilities. We don’t have concourses and things like that. So having shade and things like that was a bit of a challenge.”
Instead of acknowledging what everybody knew during his first full season in 2024 — that some game days would be scorchers — the organization avoided that narrative. That didn’t work.
“We ended up having not a great summer in attendance perspective,” Vuono said. “We had a really good spring. We came out strong. Then summer happened and we fell off a cliff. Then we had a rally, and we ended up having a really strong fall.”
Things had to change, though, and Steve Malik, the Courage owner, made a suggestion that would launch a new course.
“His message to me was we’ve got to stop hiding from it because it’s never not going to be hot in the summer in North Carolina,” Vuono recalled. “We’re always going to have games in the summer; there’s not going to be a time when we don’t have games in the summer.”
Even if the team were to move into new facilities, they wouldn’t have a dome like five of the 2026 World Cup stadiums have. Players and fans would inevitably be exposed to the heat and elements. So Vuono turned to a different kind of venue for tips.
His family visits Disney World multiple times a year, he said, and one of the weeks they typically go is in mid-June. “Orlando’s hot in the summer, but the parks are packed.”
While summer visitors might save money by not going during peak periods, Disney offers other amenities too — free access to a water park at hotel check-in and cooling merchandise like freezable neck rings that can make a stay more comfortable.
“They do all these little things to not hide from it, to lean into it,” Vuono said.
That lesson played into the launch of the Courageously Cool Summer initiative, which leans into the obvious.
“It is hot and we know that, but we can’t let the weather or the temperature dictate when we support these players,” Vuono said. “If we’re going to support this team — if we’re going to be on the forefront of advancing women’s sports — it can’t be contingent on everything’s got to be perfect.
“Rain or shine, 95 degrees or 65 degrees, we’re showing up and supporting this team,” Vuono added. In addition to developing different ticket bundles, the organization provided shade cooling zones and misting zones around the stadium. They allow fans to bring empty water bottles and fill them free of charge at hydration stations. They sell Courage-branded cooling merchandise and hold special events like Margaritaville Night and summer-themed halftime shows with dunking games.
“We did that last year, and we ended up having the largest attended summer in club history,” Vuono said.
FIFA didn’t ask the Courage for advice, but had the organization reached out, Vuono would have told them: “Don’t try to hide from it. There is an advantage that the games are played at world class venues and stadiums that have canopies over a lot of the sections. There’s shaded concourse areas. There’s a lot of advantages that they have that we don’t necessarily have at the current venue, but lean into it.”
Get more people talking
Ward, whose research at Duke focuses on the health impacts of climate extremes and community resilience, said it will be important for FIFA to make sure the athletes and conditions for play are safe.
It also will be paramount to give as much attention to the safety of support staff and the fans, she added. “Those are people who are not, in fact, at their physical peak, most likely.
“They also have maybe been consuming alcohol at the match, which makes them more vulnerable,” she said. “They are not in a position where they have access to perhaps shade and other kinds of structures that mitigate heat exposure.”
Given that extreme weather driven by climate change has become more common, Ward said, “you’re seeing more and more different types of athletics facilities that are building in things like big fans that keep wind moving. They’re paying attention to artificial shade. And they have water stations everywhere to make sure people are continuing to be hydrated.”
There’s been more awareness about climate extremes recently in part because of record hot years and media attention to that, Ward said, but also because sports venues and other institutions have had to adapt to keep fan numbers from dropping.
Still, there’s room for improvement, she said.
“I wish more institutions, like our sports institutions, would be much more out front about heat safety and delivering heat safety messaging and even have things like posters and making announcements during the game — you know, ‘Don’t forget, it’s hot outside and if you’re not feeling well you can go here,’” she said. “And when more people are talking about it, it normalizes it as part of what everybody thinks about.
“It’s a great thing when you have an organization that has such a large following that’s thinking about heat, talking about it and hopefully raising awareness among their fan base.”
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