by Johani Carolina Ponce, Yale Climate Connections
June 11, 2026
[Haz clic aquí para leer esta nota en español]
During a Club World Cup semifinal in July 2025 at the MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Argentine midfielder Enzo Fernández – suffering from heat exhaustion – had to lie down on the pitch. The temperature was 96°F (35.5°C), and the humidity was over 54%, making it feel even hotter.
“The heat was incredible. I got dizzy during a play and had to drop to the ground. Playing in these temperatures is very dangerous,” Enzo Fernández later said in Spanish.
Similar dangerous heat is likely during this summer’s World Cup in part because FIFA often schedules games in accordance with TV broadcast schedules, not player comfort. Compounding the problem, climate change is boosting the likelihood of performance-impairing heat during most scheduled World Cup matches, according to a new Climate Central analysis.
On July 19, 2026, the same stadium where Fernández suffered heat exhaustion – a facility with no roof or air conditioning – will host the World Cup final at the same time: 3 p.m. Of the tournament’s 104 matches, 54 will be played during the daytime, including 24 of the 32 knockout-stage games.
In New Jersey, annual temperatures have risen 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.2° Celsius) since 1900 – double the global average – and the number of days above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) has grown 36% since 1949, Climate Central’s analysis found. Of the tournament’s 16 stadiums, only four have a roof and air conditioning: Mercedes-Benz in Atlanta, AT&T in Dallas, NRG in Houston, and BC Place in Vancouver. MetLife is not one of them.
Television calls the shots
To address extreme heat concerns, FIFA institutionalized hydration breaks – three-minute interruptions at the midpoint of each half, mandatory in all 2026 World Cup matches regardless of weather conditions.
But why does FIFA insist on afternoon matches in full sunlight? The answer is not found on the playing fields but in television contracts. 3 p.m. Eastern Time in the United States is 8 p.m. in London and 9 p.m. in Paris and Berlin, or European primetime, where the most lucrative markets are. Sports Media Watch documented that FIFA deliberately assigned the highest-profile matches – those featuring European teams – to afternoon windows to align with that schedule.
In 2025, FIFA’s Director of Global Football Development, Arsène Wenger, said that the 2026 World Cup would include more covered stadiums. In fact, just 31 of the 104 matches will be played under a roof with air conditioning.
History speaks for itself
What happened at MetLife in 2025 is not new.
At the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, FIFA had already yielded to European broadcasters’ interests and scheduled matches at noon under a sun that pushed temperatures to 100°F (38°C) in Monterrey and 95°F (35°C) at several other venues. Diego Maradona – Argentina’s captain who is today considered one of the two greatest soccer players in history – protested publicly before the tournament began: “It should be a rule, once and for all, that organizers take players into account. Without us, there is no show. At the very least, schedules should be set for when we play best, not when it’s hottest.”
His teammate Jorge Valdano was more direct: “Playing at noon is an attack on players. This World Cup clearly shows that television’s interests are placed above those of the sport.”
In the summer of 1994, all matches in Orlando were played at temperatures of 95°F (35°C) or higher, and during the Mexico vs. Ireland match, the thermometer reached 105°F (41°C); in Dallas, temperatures surpassed 100°F (38°C). At a single match in Orlando, 160 fans received medical treatment for heat-related illness and 12 were hospitalized. Brazil’s coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said, “To give one 100% in this heat, you’d have to be a robot.”
Edgardo Broner, an Argentine journalist specializing in international soccer who covered the entire 1994 World Cup, said by phone that the dangers of extreme heat were not limited to players.
“It was inhuman. People were suffering under that terrible, blazing sun. I remember a match in Los Angeles – Alfredo Di Stéfano was right next to me [in the stands]; the man had forgotten his cap and was desperate. It was killing you,” he said. “If the host country had been somewhere else, they probably would have changed the date, like they did in Qatar.”
What has changed since 1994 is that the world has warmed by an additional 1.1 degrees Celsius, making conditions more dangerous for players. In 2017, English forward Rachel Daly, who played for the Houston Dash in the National Women’s Soccer League, was hospitalized for heat exhaustion during a match in Houston – one of the 2026 World Cup host cities. In 2024, during the Copa América held in the United States, Guatemalan assistant referee Humberto Panjoj collapsed during a match between Canada and Peru in Kansas City because of extreme heat. The Climate Central analysis found that the U.S. cities that will host matches in 2026 – Dallas, Los Angeles, Boston, and New York – recorded significantly more days above 32 degrees Celsius in June 2025.
Heat as a working condition
Sergio Levinsky is an Argentine journalist and sociologist specializing in international soccer. In 2026, he will cover his 10th World Cup.
“In New York and Miami during the 2024 Copa América and during the 2025 Club World Cup, the heat was terrible,” he recalled. “In New York, I’d see people on the subway with babies and think, ‘They don’t realize that in this heat, a baby can’t be on the subway. The heat index reached 43 degrees Celsius.’”
Read: Heat waves are extra dangerous for babies
His most extreme experience was not in the United States, but in Qatar 2022, where the temperature difference between the over-air-conditioned indoor spaces and the outdoor environment became a real risk.
“In Qatar, everything was air-conditioned: the subway, the press center, everything at around 8° Celsius (46.4° Fahrenheit),” he recalled. “But then outside the temperature was over 30° [Celsius]. I got sick from that temperature change and spent a day admitted to Hamad Hospital – on the day of the Argentina versus Netherlands match.”
Levinsky is already getting ready for the upcoming World Cup.
“I prepare myself psychologically for it because I know it’s going to be very tough,” he said.
On July 19, when the whistle blows at MetLife Stadium at 3 p.m., thousands of fans will face the New Jersey heat with no air-conditioned stadium to shelter them.
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