Short flights by football club players

[irc]

oyster said:

This paragraph is in the lead for nonsense of the week!

Why is that? We spent 2 years being told that crowded public places had a risk of catching any viral diseases going about. Has "the science" changed?

[Carl_Manchester]

oyster said:

Carl_Manchester said:

It can also make people poorly being on a train for longer than an hour due to the air-con, I would not want a multi-million pound asset on a train imho never mind 22 of them.

This paragraph is in the lead for nonsense of the week!

just to clarify, I am not referring to catching anything.

I travel the network for hours on end sometimes, the stress it puts on your mind and body is pretty heavy.

[irc]

The train is never going to happen anyway. If they are not flying it will be club coaches. No hassle from the public. Door to door.

[Chrisgr31]

PhillipM said:

I guess that seriously depends what they count as on time, versus ours, as well.

I've used probably 60-70 trains/trams in Germany the past few months/half year and there was only one I can remember that wasn't on time - because of a track issue it didn't run and they sorted out a free bus replacement that was there within 20 minutes.

You have been lucky! I am not going to suggest that UK trains don’t have issues but European trains are nowhere near as reliable as they are perceived to be

[Chrisgr31]

There are electric coaches these days https://www.westwaycoaches.co.uk/westway-fleet/zer... can do at least 200 miles. If each football ground had a charger it would sort out the issues on range!

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

frisbee said:

I think the reality important question is: has Gary Liniker ever taken one of these flights?

Tax deductible so probably.

[irc]

towser44 said:

They are not travelling on the day of the match, they travel the day before and stay in a hotel overnight, so the argument they are getting off the plane and playing a match an hour later doesn't exist.

Perhaps you can explain to the highly paid managers of the Premier League clubs that they are wasting their time using planes and they would get equal results after their players spent all day on a coach rather than resting/preparing at a comfortable hotel?

Let us know what they reply.

[FredericRobinson]

irc said:

The train is never going to happen anyway. If they are not flying it will be club coaches. No hassle from the public. Door to door.

Train travel is common, or was, Manchester United used to do it regularly, doubt they do these days given the utter st show if the west coast mainline

[crankedup5]

Maybe have some of the ‘stop oil’ protesters sit on the runways.

[nikaiyo2]

Evanivitch said:

How many hours day do footballers train?

I have no idea at all, I have no connection with football, I used to work for a company that managed VIP aircraft, charter, management, leasing etc.

I would imagine that 6 or 7 hour coach trip vs an hour flight would increase injury.

It’s all well and good suggesting trains, but that means 30 odd people on a public train platform, at least half of those are public figures, recognised by many, loved by some loathed by others, can’t imagine that’s great preparation for a football match either.

Edited by nikaiyo2 on Saturday 25th March 18:23

[MarkJS]

Can’t blame them - I’d do the same.

The road network is virtually broken and it is rare that you’ll get to your destination at the time you’d expect to these days. It seems that the majority of people on a UK motorway have no idea how to use it by seeing how many people sit in the middle lane regardless of what’s around them - I often wonder how much that particular habit costs the country every day in terms of journey delays, (probably) accidents and additional pollution etc.

The railway network is also virtually broken and certainly extremely unreliable. The cost of some rail journeys is utterly ridiculous (even without the guarantee of seat) and it’s often cheaper to get an internal flight anyway.

[Teddy Lop]

nikaiyo2 said:

Electro1980 said:

Normal cars (I.e. not footballers cars) would be slightly less polluting.
Coaches would be vastly less polluting.

All per passenger:

Domestic flight - 133g/km co2
Car - 85-45g/km co2 (assuming 2+ people per car)
Coach - 27g/km co2

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-493...

And, no, I wouldn’t fly if I could. Once you take in to account transfer times and faffing about with security it’s unlikely to save any time. Even the most extreme case, Newcastle to Bournemouth, is 6 hours drive or 3h30 to fly plus however long it takes to get to the airport.

There is an argument to fly when your doing it instead of driving yourself or it is cheaper. That is not why football clubs are doing it.

Those figures seem off to me.

I used to look after the charters for a premier league team, we used an ATR72. In Standard 74 pax configuration that produces about 7kg CO2 per passenger per 100 NM.

https://www.atr-aircraft.com/wp-content/uploads/20...

Taking your example Newcastle to Bournemouth, coach arrives at airport, 10 minutes later wheels up, on way, 1 hourish flight time, 10 minutes at Hurn getting off.

Or 6 hours on a coach?

Pretty obvious why they fly.

Trouble is you can present the figures to say whatever you want them to, so it needs quantifying. For example what exactly is a "27g/km coach"? Cos it won't be a Megabus taking man u down the M1 will it?

[alangla]

Teddy Lop said:

Trouble is you can present the figures to say whatever you want them to, so it needs quantifying. For example what exactly is a "27g/km coach"? Cos it won't be a Megabus taking man u down the M1 will it?

Given it’ll be the same basic coach, albeit with a different internal configuration and lower seating capacity, maybe just double the emissions per seat as a rule of thumb? Assume, say, 32 VIP seats in a coach body that could carry 65 normal seats.

[poo at Paul's]

I suppose the point is, there is a certain hypocrisy of anyone claiming to be ‘green’ whilst justifying their own carbon footprint as being necessary for their job, way of life etc etc. because everyone can do that, and that’s the point of the climate emergencists pushing low carbon policies.
But the question is, how many footballers or clubs, or football associations push or promote green agendas.
If none, well, they can’t be bothered and will just get on with it until people turn against them.
But, there is bound to be some….

[The Mad Monk]

poo at Paul's said:

I suppose the point is, there is a certain hypocrisy of anyone claiming to be ‘green’ whilst justifying their own carbon footprint as being necessary for their job, way of life etc etc. because everyone can do that, and that’s the point of the climate emergencists pushing low carbon policies.
But the question is, how many footballers or clubs, or football associations push or promote green agendas.
If none, well, they can’t be bothered and will just get on with it until people turn against them.
But, there is bound to be some….

Prince Harry turned up at the High Court yesterday. I wonder how he got across the Atlantic?

Economy Class on a scheduled flight?
or
Private jet.

Because it seems to me that certain people are exempt from theses green causes. The rich, the famous, actors, Royalty, politicians.

Who does that leave? Just Mr and Mrs Scroggins from Neasden? It would be interesting to see just who is flying in and out of Biggin Hill, Farnborough, Blackbushe, the private area at Luton, Gatwick, etc.

Hypocrisy isn't a big enough word.

[Crumpet]

The Mad Monk said:

Because it seems to me that certain people are exempt from theses green causes. The rich, the famous, actors, Royalty, politicians.

Who does that leave? Just Mr and Mrs Scroggins from Neasden? It would be interesting to see just who is flying in and out of Biggin Hill, Farnborough, Blackbushe, the private area at Luton, Gatwick, etc.

Hypocrisy isn't a big enough word.

I get to see who’s doing the flying because it’s me that flies them. There are certain Hollywood celebs and politicians who tell the rest of us that we should be saving the environment but then fly on said jets - but everyone knows that, that’s not news. The hypocrisy pisses me off, not the actual decision to fly on a private jet.

I’ve heard it said that there is no better way to redistribute wealth than a private jet - and it does seem that way. The number of people it gives employment to is staggering; our company alone kept multiple hotels and drivers in business through covid. There’s the people building the jets, the people maintaining them, the companies building the parts, the companies transporting the parts, the catering companies, the drivers at the catering companies, the laundry companies….etc….you get the picture.

But this is about the environment and every industry has a footprint, I’m not sure that taken as a whole the private aviation industry is any worse than others when comparing the jobs and money created. Sure, the end-user flying privately is generating lots of CO2 per mile but spread out over all the people employed it’s probably not that horrendous. People still need jobs and lots of highly paid jobs that pay lots of tax are involved.

On the face of it it’s not very ‘green’, though.

[JNW1]

The Mad Monk said:

JNW1 said:

When you compare that to a little over an hour on a plane plus a short coach trip at either end it is, as you say, pretty obvious why they choose to fly.

Yes, but if we accept (if we don't accept then that is another debate) that travel pollutes the atmosphere and air travel pollutes more than land travel, then we should, for the sake of future generations reduce to an absolute minimum air travel. This will mean a degree of discomfort and inconvenience.

Do you think that footballers should not have to suffer this inconvenience in order to save the planet?

Should we add the rich, the famous royalty and actors to the list?

I agree the optics of private air travel aren't good in the context of the climate change argument, especially when some of the people doing it also hold themselves out to be supporters of the move towards net zero.

However, the reality is very few can afford that sort of travel and if you stopped all of it tomorrow it wouldn't move the needle on the global emissions gauge. So a bit like banning supercars it's more symbolic than anything else - if you're serious about reducing global emissions you need to tackle the major sources of pollution and in the grand scheme of things private air travel isn't one of them.

So IMO the whole thing about PL teams flying to matches is much ado about nothing - the clubs are just getting their players and coaching staff to games in the quickest and most convenient way possible and personally I don't blame them for that.

[Flooble]

Remember in any communist state, some animals are more equal than others.

[Evanivitch]

poo at Paul's said:

I suppose the point is, there is a certain hypocrisy of anyone claiming to be ‘green’ whilst justifying their own carbon footprint as being necessary for their job, way of life etc etc. because everyone can do that, and that’s the point of the climate emergencists pushing low carbon policies.
But the question is, how many footballers or clubs, or football associations push or promote green agendas.
If none, well, they can’t be bothered and will just get on with it until people turn against them.
But, there is bound to be some….

Forest Green Rovers are doing quite big things for a small club.

[swisstoni]

Insignificant in terms of total emissions.

It does make one wonder sometimes whether some of the objections on ‘green’ grounds are nothing but attempts to make other people feel bad about themselves.