Football clubs have spent decades finding new ways to reward loyalty. Season-ticket holders receive priority access to matches, supporters accumulate points for attending away games and membership schemes offer everything from ticket discounts to exclusive merchandise.
But what if fans could earn rewards for something other than watching their team?
Imagine receiving loyalty points for cycling to the stadium, discounted tickets for travelling by train or the chance to meet your favourite player because you’ve left the car at home.
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It might sound like another marketing gimmick, but some clubs are already putting the idea into practice. And with supporter travel accounting for a significant share of football’s environmental footprint, there’s a strong argument for making greener journeys worth fans’ while.
In January 2026, Real Betis announced a partnership with sustainable mobility platform Ciclogreen through the Spanish club’s Forever Green initiative. Supporters can register journeys made by walking, cycling, public transport or electric scooter, earning points according to the distance travelled.
Those points can unlock rewards and entry into prize draws for match tickets, signed shirts, merchandise and experiences involving players.
The scheme is designed to encourage environmentally friendly journeys while helping the club measure the collective impact of its supporters’ travel choices.
It’s a relatively simple proposition. Fans already make the journey to the stadium; why not give them an additional incentive to choose a less polluting way of getting there?
There are examples closer to home, too.
Bradford City announced a partnership with BetterPoints in 2026, encouraging supporters to earn rewards for walking, cycling and using public transport. Participants can accumulate points redeemable for shopping vouchers, local purchases or charitable donations, while the club has also offered exclusive incentives, including a season-ticket prize draw.
The initiative forms part of Bradford’s wider Greener Bantams programme, which also includes a sustainable travel hub developed through its community foundation. Supported by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, the hub aims to make journeys around Bradford more accessible and affordable, including trips to the University of Bradford Stadium.
That wider infrastructure matters because supporters cannot always choose how they travel.
A fan living two miles from the ground might happily cycle if there are safe routes and somewhere secure to leave their bike. Somebody travelling 100 miles for an evening kick-off faces an entirely different calculation.
Research commissioned by Trainline’s I came by train initiative in September 2025 estimated that UK football supporters make 34 million return journeys of more than an hour annually.
More than half are undertaken by car. Yet 83% of surveyed supporters said they would consider travelling by train more often.
The appetite exists, but the obstacles are familiar: expensive fares, inconvenient timetables and services that finish before supporters can get home.
A handful of loyalty points won’t persuade somebody to spend £100 on a train ticket when driving costs considerably less. That doesn’t make rewards pointless; it means they need to be part of a more substantial effort to improve matchday travel.
Clubs could negotiate discounted fares with local transport providers, offer ticket incentives for supporters using park-and-ride services and introduce rewards for car-sharing when public transport isn’t practical.
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Supporters could earn points for sustainable journeys without having to buy anything extra, while clubs could use the information to identify where better transport provision is needed.
The benefits wouldn’t be confined to carbon emissions.
Fewer cars around stadiums could mean less congestion, improved air quality and shorter queues after matches. Walking and cycling can also make journeys cheaper and provide an opportunity for physical activity.
And football has a useful advantage over most organisations attempting to encourage behavioural change: supporters already feel a powerful sense of belonging. A loyalty scheme that rewards greener travel could tap into the same collective enthusiasm that persuades thousands of people to wear their club’s colours, travel across the country and sing themselves hoarse every weekend.
There is evidence that clubs could find a receptive audience.
Brentford’s 2026 sustainability survey found that 74% of respondents were interested in learning how they could help reduce the club’s environmental impact. Nearly half expressed a willingness to share car journeys with other supporters, while 36% said they would cycle to matches to reduce their environmental impact.
Those figures don’t mean every supporter will suddenly abandon their car. But they suggest that clubs have an opportunity to encourage behaviour that many fans are already considering.
The challenge is ensuring such schemes are genuinely accessible.
Supporters with disabilities, those travelling with young children and fans living in poorly connected areas shouldn’t be disadvantaged because they cannot realistically use public transport or cycle.
Nor should rewards become an excuse for clubs to neglect their own responsibilities. Offering a signed shirt to somebody who cycles to a match means little if the club continues to ignore inadequate transport infrastructure or makes decisions that unnecessarily increase supporters’ travel emissions.
In August 2026, UEFA introduced new guidance for measuring spectator travel emissions, developed with the Premier League and the leading professional leagues in France and Germany.
It identified incentives, improved cycling facilities and partnerships with public transport providers as ways clubs could encourage lower-carbon journeys.
Reward schemes could therefore become one useful part of a broader strategy, particularly if clubs measure whether they actually change travel behaviour rather than simply rewarding supporters who would have walked or cycled anyway.
Football fans have long demonstrated that they’re willing to go extraordinary lengths to support their clubs.
Giving them a little something back for making greener journeys seems a reasonable place to start.
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