I will, from now on, refer to "soccer" as "football" and "American football" as opposed to "football". The reasons being: it's the proper and original definition, it's appropriate naming for what the sport actually is, it's the terminology most of the world uses, and the sport itself, alongside its name, predates American football. Starting with the practical reason why football is the best sport is that it's cheap and easy to play. The only real requirement is a ball and a flat field. The number of people can be 1v1 or XvX, and the goal can be be a tree trunk or a post or 2 rocks or an actual goal with a net. Meaning, everyone on the planet, regardless of socio-economic status, can easily play the fundamental principles of the game of football. There are very few sports that can be so cheaply and easily played in this sense. The second reason being its beneficial physical nature, meaning it requires considerable physical activity, which is healthy in it self but without understaking unreasonable risk of injury. The restricted body contact prevents most of the serious negative outcomes of a contact sport. The third and last reason being psychological. Football represents an ideal way in which humans can compete with each other. Beginning with the concept of a goal, every human action essentially requires a "goal" regardless of how hard or deep it is. Also, we're a cooperative species, meaning that most important goals require other people. Which means everyone benefits from determining who's better at achieving certain important goals. In other words, competition. In this sense, football is a simplified, distilled, ideal representation of human reality in which individuals work together, "teaming up" to ethically compete against another group of people, within the same rules, to achieve or score a "goal", determining who's "best". This is why football is so great; it directly represents some of the core aspects of being human and what we strive for.

It is true that football stadiums have a cost to the environment. From the cost of electricity, water, garbage, to gathering thousands of people in one place and everything that it entails. However, I would dispute that this is a significant negative cost for many reasons:  First, there are not many "FIFA-ready" stadiums worldwide, roughly 345. On average, there's 1 stadium per major city, at least 700,000 in population, and 3 or 4 per country. Meaning, the costs are well diluted considering the number of people involved. The amount of taxes and fees collected from the tickets and surrounding businesses more than pays for water, energy, "carbon footprint" or other costs that the stadium incurs. Considering the average lifetime of stadiums as well as attendance. Second, outside of stadiums and training facilities, there are very few grass football pitches. I'd argue there are almost none since I have personal experience with how much it takes to buy and maintain them. The costs are high even without considering water and energy. It's why the vast majority of football pitches worldwide are simply flat dirt fields, a few with synthetic grass. Meaning, the football pitches that have a "carbon footprint" are in stadiums or training facilities that more than pay for their environmental cost. Third, even if disregarding my previous points, any sport or activity that attracts billions of people is bound to have a carbon footprint and environmental cost. It can be argued that anything humans do at this point has a cost, and simply pointing this out isn't a reasonable argument without context. Compared to what? What about the benefits? Where are the arguments or evidence that the negative outcomes outweigh the positives?

According to available data, there are approximately 345 stadiums worldwide with an average of 40,000 seats. There are, on average, 3 or 4 per country in major cities of ~700,000 people. These stadiums play, on average, 25 games per year with an average of 64% attendance at ~30€ per ticket. I agree that football causes a "carbon footprint" as a consequence, especially from so many people moving. However, from the data, roughly estimating, 30,000 tickets x 30€ x 345 stadiums x 25 games per year = 7.76 billion €/year. I'd argue that the taxes and fees from this revenue alone compensate for the water and energy costs of these stadiums. In regard to the overall "carbon footprint" of football, it can also be said that the sport generates many other significant revenue streams directly or indirectly, such as advertising, video games, clothing, food & beverage industries, etc., which all are taxed and further alleviate its "carbon footprint". Besides these, there are also intangible values such as the benefits to culture and people that can't be understated and are difficult to quantify. Lastly, even if grating that "CO₂ emissions" and "carbon footprint" is an established science, and that football causes harms in these terms. It's not clear how it would be any different from anything else that moves billions of people. Which begs the question: are museums not great because they cause people to travel? How is football more inherently polluting than tourism? If so, then doesn't this line of reasoning lead to anti-humanism? In conclusion, considering the fact that anything we do has a cost, that it wasn't demonstrated football is inherently more polluting in comparison, that measures exist to counteract the inevitable "carbon footprint", and that it brings many great benefits, as well as the arguments I've made in my opening statement, football is the greatest sport in the world.