A Fifa representative told BBC Sport: “The Fifa president routinely travels, together with relevant officials, on business and tournament-related matters and strives to visit member associations of Fifa whenever he can.
“Sometimes travel is organised on commercial [including low-cost] airlines and sometimes it is on private charter, depending on which is more efficient and cost-effective under the circumstances.”
We asked Fifa whether any of the flights to World Cup games were on commercial airlines, how many people travel on the Qatar Executive jet and whether Fifa offsets these emissions – but it has not responded.
Freddie Daley, who works for the sport climate action network Cool Down, called Infantino’s apparent use of a private jet at the World Cup “symptomatic of Fifa’s failings on the environment and sustainability”.
“The fact that Infantino’s choosing to use a private jet is just completely at odds with the level of leadership that we need to see at the top of Fifa on environmental issues,” says Daley, a researcher at Sussex University.
Private jets have a “completely disproportionate impact”, says Denise Auclair, a sustainable travel expert at the European Federation for Transport and Environment. “They are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial planes and 50 times more than trains.”
