Wolves join European air quality monitoring league

Wolverhampton Wanderers have joined a European-wide project to monitor air quality and emissions at its facilities.

The club is the first English side to take part in the Clean Air Champions League, which aims to leverage football's widespread appeal to promote air quality awareness and action across the continent.

A monitoring system will be installed at stadiums or training facilities to check emissions, the Wolves Foundation said.

Once data is collected, a "live" league table, set to be launched in 2026, will rank clubs based on the local air quality, as well as fan and community-led initiatives to raise awareness and encourage action on air quality and climate health.

The project is led by Irish club Bohemians and supported by the European Football for Development Network.

ADO Den Haag from the Netherlands, Real Betis from Spain and the Bulgarian Football Union have also signed up.

Jonathan Warburton, Wolves Foundation's head of programmes for education, employability and youth engagement, said they were delighted to be involved.

"The [air quality monitoring system]... will be able to tell the story about the level of the emissions in the locality," he said.

"That goes into a league table which isn't just based on emissions but also the number of people who are engaged in activity to build awareness such as educational workshops."

Mr Warburton said it would also prompt "an extensive engagement exercise as to what can be done, if needed, to improve the air quality around Molineux".

"We will be speaking to fans, local residents, people who work nearby and local schools to assess the best ways of responding to the data and to see what actions we can all take to improve the air quality within the city," he added.

Wolverhampton Wanderers said they already had a strategy to look at "addressing waste, protecting nature and embedding sustainability, with a pledge to reach net zero by the year 2040".

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