Uefa's Champions Innovate programme delivers 'tangible results' for ...
Uefa has said the inaugural edition of its Champions Innovate programme, which saw three of its commercial partners team up with tech startups, delivered tangible benefits for London ahead of this year’s Uefa Champions League final.
European soccer’s governing body launched the venture last September, with participants tasked with identifying innovative ways to enhance the Champions League final’s social and environmental impact.
The theme for future editions will be selected by Uefa and the host city, with this year’s competition focusing on sustainability. Ahead of the 2024 final at Wembley Stadium, all three projects were presented at a showcase event held at London’s City Hall, with an expert jury selecting a winner.
The panel chose Just Eat Takeaway’s project with My Emissions as the winning project, with the latter receiving €45,000 (US$48,800) in prize money. Their project was centered on using carbon labelling to grade each menu item on offer at the final.
Two other projects were presented at the event. Pavegen teamed up with PepsiCo’s energy drink brand Rockstar to create a kinetic dance floor at the Champions League Festival in Trafalgar Square, which will power part of the DJ show held on 31st May.
Meanwhile, Mastercard and Pledgeball worked together to develop the ‘Champions Innovate Pledge League’, an online platform designed to engage soccer fans on adopting environmental and sustainability behaviours to reduce their individual carbon footprint.
Andrea Traverso, director of financial sustainability and research at Uefa, told SportsPro that the organisation was keen to find a way for its partners to be involved from an innovation standpoint, with sustainability a key focus.
“The match was done quite naturally,” he said. “Then we came on together and we put together such a collaboration that is a first time incubator at Uefa level. For a sports organisation, it is very innovative.”
The initiative will run again ahead of the 2025 Champions League final in Munich, with the focus set to be on promoting physical activity among citizens.
Charles Frémont, Uefa Innovation Hub manager, noted that the governing body was very happy to have three of its biggest sponsors come on board to help fund the projects and mentor the startups they were partnered with.
He added that several US-based organisations have since got in touch with Uefa asking about the project, given its unique nature of bringing in sponsors to work on innovation projects.
“This entire social and environmental sustainability strategy of Uefa is linked on collaboration,” Frémont said. “It’s about putting all of the various stakeholders in the Uefa ecosystem to really drive change.
“That was the DNA of Champions Innovate at the core. It’s providing the unique platform that we have with the Uefa Champions League finals, and putting all of its stakeholders together to really work on a concrete project that solves a concrete challenge.
“With all the three projects, we saw that there have been tangible results, obtained in light with the challenges that had been put forward at the beginning.”
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