Next Generation

Seán McCabe leads climate justice initiatives through the platform of football, using the global reach of the game to drive inclusive, cooperative solutions to social and environmental challenges. At Bohemian Football Club, he has built a team dedicated to developing community wealth building climate actions that can be scaled internationally through football’s networks. With over 18 years’ experience across grassroots and global arenas, Seán has helped shape multilateral climate agreements with the Mary Robinson Foundation, strengthen environmental protections with the Sierra Leone EPA, and advance children’s environmental rights with UNICEF and the UNCRC. As the architect of The People’s Transition, developed with TASC and FEPS, he has championed community-led strategies that position climate action as a driver of equity, dignity, and development.

Madeleine is a researcher, educator and advocate working at the intersection of sport and climate change. After earning her PhD in Kinesiology from the University of Minnesota in 2020 and a postdoc in strategy at University of British Columbia in 2021, Maddy joined the Institute for Sport Business at Loughborough University London where she developed the world’s first MSc in Sustainable Sport Business. She joined the University of Toronto as an Assistant Professor of Sport Ecology in Fall 2023, and is a visiting professor for sustainability in sport with the FIA University.

Maddy is the founder of The Sport Ecology Group, an international consortium of academics who drive climate action in the sport sector through research and public education initiatives. She currently serves as Industry Lead with the SEG which sees her collaborating with several industry partners to drive evidence-based decision making on ESG, climate risk, and strategic communications. Her research in sport ecology examines the impacts of climate change on the sport sector, with a focus on resilience and adaptation. She has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and several industry-facing reports on the topic, many of which have gained global attention. Her work has been covered by the BBC, Time Magazine, ESPN, Sky Sports, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and more. Her first book Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sports (for Bloomsbury) was published in 2024 and named a Top 5 Sports Book of 2024 by The Guardian.

Milton Kisapai comes from the Oceania country of Papua New Guinea. A national hockey athlete who has been in the sport for development for almost 10 years now.

He started as one of the first athlete volunteers with the Papua New Guinea Olympic Committee’s Sport & Environment Program called “Love Your Coast” in 2012. Since 2012, he helped with the LYC program by delivering and facilitating awareness with athletes & officials at different tournaments and competitions.  This led to him being actively engaged with other sport for development programs of the PNG Olympic Committee. But his passion lies with advocating for the environment using the power of sport.

In 2017, Milton was appointed one out of five athletes in Papua New Guinea as Team PNG SDG Champions. This was a partnership between the United Nations in Papua New Guinea and the PNG Olympic Committee to use athletes to advocate and promote the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Milton has so far led, coordinated and mobilized national athletes to be involved in a number of mangrove planting initiatives with key stakeholders in the environment sector in PNG.

Milton is now employed by the PNG Olympic Committee as Programs Coordinator, coordinating all sport for development programs and partnerships of the organization.

He is also a member of the UNESCO Asia/Pacific Youth, Sport & SDG Taskforce, after attending the Youth, Sport & SDG Funshop in Seoul, Korea in 2019. Milton will soon be pursuing his Master’s of International Development Practice with a focus on Sport for Development & Sport Diplomacy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Claudia Patricia Galindo Rodríguez, graduated in biology and Master in Conservation and Use of Biodiversity, my purpose is to work in processes of environmental sustainability oriented to the transformation and mitigation of threats to which biodiversity is exposed. I am a high performance athlete in the beach volleyball discipline (Colombian Selection) and through sport, I seek to generate tools that contribute to educational and social processes towards a vision and responsible action on the conservation of biodiversity, climate change and sustainable development

Zeina Hamarsha is a former goalkeeper for Jordan’s Women’s National Football Team. After hanging up her boots, she obtained her bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from The University of Jordan. During her undergrad Zeina worked as a competition officer for the FIFA U17 Women’s World cup Jordan 2016. After graduating, she worked as a civil engineer briefly before returning back to sport but on the managerial side. Zeina recently graduated from the top-ranked CIES/FIFA Master program in International management, law and humanities of sport. During her time at the Master, she and her team participated in the SportPro Media Hackathon, winning third place and the most financially sustainable concept for a project idea that focuses on the idea of future sustainable stadiums. Combining her backgrounds in sports and civil engineering, Zeina is passionate about leveraging technology to make all areas of sport more sustainable.

Arianna Criscione is a former professional football player having finished her career at Paris Saint-Germain where she had a dual role as player and as Women’s Sponsorship Manager for the past 2 seasons at the French club. Previously to joining PSG she played in Italy, France, Sweden, Netherlands and Norway, and earned several caps with the Italian Women’s National Team, as well as appearances in the UEFA Women’s Champions League.

She is now the Director of Women’s Football at N3XT Sports and uses her experience and creativity to help football stakeholders to build sustainable and accelerated blueprints that raise the women’s game.

Brita is a seasoned Sustainability manager, with experience from global brands, and has broad experience with managing risk, responsibility, and climate action in global supply chains as well as internal operations. Brita is specialized in building sustainability- and climate strategies by creating broad ownership and clear objectives, and has done so for private enterprises, government departments and international NGOs. She is now an advisor and head of international relations in SALT.

Brita holds an MSc in Business Administration and Development Management as well as a trained Climate Reality Leader by Al Gore. She is passionate about taking care of our common playgrounds while also seeing to make the shift happen on policy levels. She currently resides in the Lofoten Islands, while holding the active role as President for Protect our Winters Europe

Richard Lindsay is the Business Insights Manager for Birmingham County FA and the Project Lead for the Save Today, Play Tomorrow Programme, the first of its kind sustainability project in the UK looking at how to reduce the impact of grassroots football on the environment & implementing positive achievable solutions for the 1,200 volunteer led clubs that come under their membership.

Iva Glibo serves as a Committee Member for the Croatian Olympic Committee at ENGSO Youth, the only European organisation devoted to grassroots sport and youth. As part of her current role, she is responsible for the Sustainable Development Working Group. In addition, Iva has a keen interest in mental health through sport and physical activity. During the course of her regular workday, she is a doctoral candidate at the Technical University of Munich, researching sustainable development in international sport through a systems thinking perspective.

Jennifer Amann recently graduated from the University of Gothenburg with a Master of Science in Global Studies focusing on conflict resolution and sustainable development. Having started to look into the social and environmental commitment of German professional football clubs in 2018, she moved on to explore the potential of football fans in the fight against climate change as part of a research internship with Dr Mark Doidge from the University of Brighton. In her subsequent Master’s thesis she connected literature on mobilising climate action and football fandom to explore football fan communities’ potential to take collective climate action and bring about societal transformations using the UK-based charity Pledgeball as her case.

In addition to Pledgeball’s strategy, Jennifer’s research feeds into, for example, Spirit of Football’s The Ball journey, which aims to highlight the unequal impacts of climate change and possible solutions around the world. She’s a member of the Sport Ecology Group’s Graduate Mentorship Programme and has recently taken on the coordination of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Environmental Working Group.