The Planet League Cup was the unique five-week sustainability tournament where football fans scored goals for their club by completing green activities like having a meat-free meal, opting for public transport, and filling up reusable bottles with tap water – instead of relying on plastic water bottles.

The tournament commenced on the 10th of October and ran for a total of five weeks. A variety of professional clubs, schools, players/participants as well as county FAs all took part in the Planet League Cup – or in other words - Britain’s Biggest Climate Action Campaign in Football!

Each week focused on a particular theme, such as energy, food, or travel. Every activity completed would result in goals being scored – scoring for the planet and also the club/school/county FA that the individual participant was linked and/or aligned to. Media in the form of images would then be uploaded of the completed activity as evidence that the activity had been completed by the participant. Planet League’s virtual assistant referee (VAR) system would assess the image before announcing the goal scored.

Hampshire FA were the proud winners of the Planet League Cup in the county FA category, scoring a whopping 2081 goals across the 5-week period.

The newly established Hampshire FA Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team launched ‘CSR days’ for Hampshire FA staff in the year – under the campaign name 2020🌳. The CSR team was behind the activation of the partnership with the Planet League and the association’s involvement in the Planet League Cup.

Hampshire FA staff are invited to take a working day off in the year to complete a day of CSR activities from Planet League’s list of activities to support and score for the planet and the county FA. Ethical, environmental, and exactly what Corporate Social Responsibility stands for, the county FA implemented the initiative (which will conclude in June 2023 and restart in September of the same year) to support the association’s CSR work but to offer staff the opportunity of taking the day off to be mindful of their actions and the impact they have on the planet – in the hope to then inspire change in the process.

The staff were encouraged to use their day (or alternatively to factor in CSR work into their work schedules), specifically during the Planet League Cup to give the county FA the much-needed boost it needed to be in with a chance at winning the tournament.

This is the first achievement we have gained as a team and are delighted to have been selected by Planet League for a case study based on staff involvement in the Cup (see video below).

The production of this video was done by William Tyrell, James Humphreys, Malhar Desai and Liu Chin. These four students are currently studying Sports Broadcast Journalism at the Solent University in Southampton. William and James are in their third year in the BA programme, while Malhar and Liu are doing the MA programme. 

More information on 2020🌳 can be found on our website and additionally, to find out more about the association’s overall CSR work across the board.