FIFA declared in a statement that it would review the suggestions and was entitled to an appeal.

FIFA made false claims about the World Cup in Qatar last year being carbon neutral, an advertising regulator in Switzerland alleged on Wednesday.

In its ruling on complaints submitted from five countries, the federally-recognised Swiss Commission for Fairness stated that FIFA was “not able to provide proof that the claims were accurate.”

The commission stated it “advised FIFA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims in the future. Particularly the claim that the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was climate- or carbon-neutral.”

Environmental organisations from Belgium, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland complained to the Swiss advertising commission regarding FIFA’s promises that the event would be carbon neutral.

FIFA declared in a statement that it would review the suggestions and was entitled to appeal the recommendations, which are not legally binding.

As it geared up to host the biggest footballing tournament in the world, Qatar spent more than $200 billion on a ten-year construction programme of primarily air-conditioned projects.

Eight stadiums were constructed in and around Doha, one of which was made entirely of shipping containers that would subsequently be used for other purposes.

While FIFA committed to reducing and offsetting carbon emissions it generated for the tournament, the Swiss commission in Zurich said the footballing body had not proven the offsets “and did not set out a plan to define how it will further offset emissions”.

“It was unclear to the [regulator] whether the promised level of [carbon dioxide] compensation was realistic at all,” the ruling said.

FIFA recognised in a statement that “climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time.”

“FIFA is also fully aware of the impacts that mega-events have on the economy, the natural environment and on people and communities, and has been making substantial efforts to tackle those impacts and, at the same time, to use opportunities to maximise the positive effects of its most iconic tournament,” the football governing body added.

Separately, Swedish climate activists filed a complaint back in December to the Swiss Integrity Commission against FIFA’s “possible unfair greenwashing promises.”

The move followed similar advertising complaints that had been filed across several European countries over FIFA’s alleged promotion of its carbon neutrality claims, while several footballers sent an open letter to FIFA asking it to “ditch” the claim and only use offsets as a last resort.

Prior to the tournament, FIFA said the Qatar World Cup will have a footprint of 3.6 million tonnes of equivalent carbon waste, which will be offset by a number of initiatives, making it a “carbon neutral” tournament.

But climate activists and scientists argued that FIFA’s claim of a carbon-neutral World Cup is false due to underestimation of emissions and a lack of credibility in its offsets.

“We did a little digging into FIFA’s carbon footprint estimate and we think it’s way over 10 million tonnes – so three times that, at least,” Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University told the BBC in November.

“‘Carbon neutral’ is a dodgy term. The offset scheme the World Cup has chosen doesn’t remove carbon from the atmosphere, so it’s a bogus term. It’s very misleading to call this a carbon-neutral World Cup. They’re not even removing carbon to compensate,” he added.

In the lead up to the tournament, both FIFA and Qatar doubled down on assurances that the 2022 tournament will be “carbon neutral”, pointing towards sustainable stadiums, lack of need for flights to match venues, as well as green public transportation.

Green-dipped promises

For its part however, Qatar carried out thorough plans to deliver on sustainability initiatives promised in the lead up to the tournament.

Seven of the eight world-class stadiums for the tournament were built from scratch in Qatar, while the other was heavily renovated.

Secretary General of the World Cup organising body, Hassan Al Thawadi, previously said every stadium complied with sustainability standards to ensure use afterwards.

“We have recycled and reused wherever possible and implemented a vast range of energy and water efficiency solutions,’” he said in a document on the stadiums.

“We have used materials from sustainable sources and implemented innovative legacy plans to ensure our tournament doesn’t leave any ‘white elephants’,” he said, referring to a term used to describe an expensive possession of no use.

In May, authorities confirmed all 100% of the waste created during the World Cup 2022 was sorted and recycled in Qatar.

More than 271mn kilowatt-hours of power and over 35,000 tonnes of fertilisers were produced at the Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre in Mesaieed last year, in addition to more than 27,000 tonnes of recyclable materials getting re-sorted, the Minister of Municipality Abdullah bin Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Subaie said.

About 153 plots of land were also designated for waste recycling and established for the use of private sector, including factories and companies involved in a bid to raise the culture of recycling waste in all its forms in the country.

It was the first such instance in the tournament’s history that such a percentage of waste sorting and recycling had been achieved.

Qatar was also the first country in the Eastern Mediterranean region to have all of its cities receive the World Health Organisation designation of Healthy City as a result of significant efforts in implementing the principles and standards of environmental, health, and urban sustainability—one of the most important indicators of healthy cities.