17 July 2026
Nearly One in Five World Cup Games Hit Dangerous Heat Levels
A new report reveals that close to 20 percent of matches at the 2026 World Cup were played in conditions that the global players' union has warned are unsafe for footballers.
The Guardian reports that roughly one in five matches at the 2026 World Cup reached heat levels that the global players' union has flagged as a cause for serious concern. The tournament served as what one expert from Columbia University described as a true stress test of how football can cope with extreme weather conditions.
The findings land at a significant moment for the sport, with the 2030 World Cup scheduled across Spain, Portugal and Morocco, three countries already experiencing more intense heat as a result of the climate crisis. The 2034 tournament in Saudi Arabia has been moved to the northern hemisphere winter specifically to avoid summer temperatures that can regularly exceed 40 degrees Celsius.
According to The Guardian, the hottest game played in a stadium without air conditioning during this tournament took place on the Fourth of July in Philadelphia, underlining how the United States summer posed its own serious challenges to player welfare.
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