College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources<\/a> (CAHNR), and Robert Huggins, chief research officer and president of athlete performance at KSI and assistant professor of kinesiology, were signatories. Others include experts from universities and professional organizations around the world.<\/p>\nCurrently, FIFA mandates that if temperatures reach 32 degrees Celsius (89.6 Fahrenheit) wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), there is a three-minute break at the 30 and 75-minute marks of each game. WBGT is an estimate of the combined effects of air temperature, humidity, wind, and sunlight on the human body.<\/p>\n
Host cities including Miami, Houston, and Atlanta have average summer temperatures in the 90s with high humidity.<\/p>\n
Casa and the other experts who signed onto the letter urge FIFA to lower the temperature threshold to 26 degrees WBGT (78.8 Fahrenheit) and extend breaks to six minutes. This would allow players to hydrate for longer, put cool towels on their bodies, and potentially sit under a shade brought onto the field, as players are not allowed to leave during breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would really make a big difference in terms of the amount of hydration you could achieve and the cooling strategies you could implement,\u201d Casa says.<\/p>\n
Soccer players do not leave the field to sub out until well into the second half of the game, if at all, making these breaks even more important.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese athletes are playing for an hour or an hour and a half of with no break besides halftime,\u201d Casa says. \u201cThey get really hot. It\u2019s very different than other sports.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter also calls for there to be air-conditioned locker rooms available to all teams for aggressive pre- and post-game cooling. All stadiums for this year\u2019s games already have this amenity.<\/p>\n
Providing more and better opportunities for hydration and cooling not only protects players\u2019 health, it also enables better athletic performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you’re a spectator, do you want to see people who are moving much slower, not running as much because they\u2019re wilting on the field, or do you want to see the highest quality soccer, because they’re not as hyperthermic or dehydrated?\u201d Casa says.<\/p>\n
Heat safety at and around the World Cup includes more than players and extends beyond this event. While this year\u2019s World Cup is using preexisting stadiums in the host countries, this is not always the case. For the 2022 Men\u2019s World Cup in Qatar, thousands of workers died building new stadiums in extreme heat.<\/p>\n
Those working and volunteering at the games are also exposed to the heat for hours, as are spectators in the stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have people of various fitness levels and medical conditions,\u201d Casa says. \u201cThere\u2019s a ton of people involved with these events.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the 2026 World Cup, FIFA has determined that the three-minute breaks will be implemented regardless of the temperature. While this will undoubtedly benefit the players at the World Cup, there are many other FIFA events each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m trying to use the World Cup moment to amplify the experience of other soccer players around the world who don\u2019t have the kind of \u2018rock star status\u2019 of the men\u2019s World Cup,\u201d Casa says.<\/p>\n
KSI has historically worked with professional soccer teams including the U.S. women\u2019s Olympic soccer team for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. They also worked with the Portugal men\u2019s team ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
KSI was established in 2010 at UConn in memory of NFL player Korey Stringer The institute provides research, education, advocacy, and consultation to maximize performance, optimize safety, and prevent sudden death for the athlete, warfighter, and laborer. KSI is housed within UConn\u2019s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR) in the Department of Kinesiology, and includes a satellite laboratory, KSI at the University of North Florida in the Brooks College of Health (KSI at UNF), to extend its research and outreach impact.<\/em><\/p>\nThis work relates to CAHNR\u2019s Strategic Vision area focused on\u00a0<\/em>Advancing Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing Climate and <\/em>Enhancing Health and Well-Being Locally, Nationally, and Globally.<\/u><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 World Cup begins on June 11 in North America, along with the start of summer and high temperatures that pose a threat to athletes, fans, and workers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":135154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1712,2224,2460,2231,2299,2076,2235,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2140],"class_list":["post-247288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-cahnr","category-faculty","category-health-well-being","category-kinesiology","category-research","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 21:40:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247288"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247346,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247288\/revisions\/247346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/135154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247288"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=247288"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=247288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}