Iván Vázquez, director of the youth divisions at Club Olimpia in Paraguay, is even more emphatic: “Synthetic turf pitches should be banned here. The temperatures can hurt the children’s feet, causing burns when they fall.”
In addition to training, a constant challenge for youth teams is children having to play on the same day on the same pitch due to infrastructure and transport issues. This can necessitate some children playing during the hottest part of the day, creating problems for complying with guidance on heat exposure put out by health officials and football federations.
Ariel Ramírez, media coordinator for Conmebol, which governs professional football of all ages in South America, says it “controls high temperatures in its tournaments through strict medical protocols that include monitoring humidity and ambient temperature with specialised equipment”.
Drinks breaks are mandatory above certain temperatures, along with pre-match medical examinations, acclimatisation and education on heatstroke. This protocol also applies to youth tournaments. It was in force when the 16-year-old collapsed in Paraguay last November. But application can be patchy. A 2018 study warned that ambulances were consistently absent during training sessions and youth matches in Paraguay’s local leagues.
Children at risk
Conmebol originally developed its protocol for the 2016 Copa América in the United States.
Successive football tournaments in the Americas have drawn criticism for their approach to extreme heat. The organisation had to update and broaden its protocol for the 2024 Copa América, also in the US, in response to growing evidence on the impact of playing in summer conditions. Despite the new protocol, a referee collapsed in that tournament during one of the nine matches played in dangerously hot conditions.
Gregory Wellenius, a researcher on climate change and environmental health at Boston University School of Public Health, points out that in youth football, the challenge goes beyond having protocols, controlling schedules and playing surfaces.
Cities such as Boston, which will host games at the next World Cup, have protocols and alerts for extreme-heat situations. But these are “designed for the general population” and “certainly not children and young footballers”, he says.
“Children are not small adults; they are thermodynamically different. They sweat differently, and sweating is the mechanism humans have to cool the body,” Wellenius explains.
Places that historically did not have high temperatures face greater problems in adapting their infrastructure, Wellenius says. “What may be common in Houston or Central America is not so common in cities like Boston, which used to be cooler and now experiences heat waves.”
In addition to physiology and infrastructure, Wellenius believes it is essential to remember that children are also “less likely to know when to stop” when they get too hot in competitive environments.
The full impact of heat on children and adolescents is still unknown. “We don’t really know the long-term impact of exposure to extreme heat on children,” says the researcher. “What happens to their bodies if they are constantly under pressure from high temperatures?”
Adapting at home – and in the stands
Philip Jenkins, one of the lead authors of the Football for Future report on the perils of the coming World Cup, says: “Our analysis shows that by 2050, extreme heat in stadiums will become the new normal, with almost 90 per cent needing to adapt to cope.”
The report focussed on stadiums hosting this and the next two World Cups as well as grassroots stadiums linked to World Cup legends, such as those where Lionel Messi and Pelé began their careers. In some of these stadiums, football matches and training will be severely disrupted by extreme temperatures by 2050, for as many as two months per year, the report found.
Faced with this “new normal”, coaches and researchers say there is no silver-bullet solution.
Cooling breaks and leaving behind synthetic turf pitches in favour of natural grass could help. But more broadly “the region needs to develop early-warning systems for extreme heat” says Francisco Chesini, a public health researcher at the University of Buenos Aires and part of the Global Heat Health Information Network.
Such systems are already implemented in countries including Spain, where local-level forecasts and temperature thresholds trigger a comprehensive response from authorities and health officials. The United Nations launched an initiative in 2022 for a worldwide adoption of early-warning systems by the end of 2027. Paraguay already aims to develop one as part of its climate policy, pending funding.
“There is still a long way to go to raise awareness of the need to invest in infrastructure,” says Tognarelli.
But, he adds, “It is an investment, not an expense. Our role must be to protect and provide comprehensive training for these children.”
Wellenius says adapting is not about eliminating risks but about empowering people to make informed decisions. There is an untapped opportunity, he says, to use football communities not only to protect children and adolescents in sport, but also to advance understanding and the need for public policies on heat.
“People know that heat is a problem, but they don’t think it’s their problem,” he says, “It is not enough to issue general alerts in the media or on social networks in the event of extreme temperatures. This information must be strategically communicated to those who have the trust of others in these communities, such as mothers and coaches.”
As well as the music of the body and the festival of the eyes, football may also have the power to change minds on climate risks and the need for action.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
