LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP) —The biggest and most lucrative World Cup ever this summer will also set a record for the most-polluting sporting event in history, environmental experts say.

“Unlike the case of the Olympic Games, where the carbon footprints have been reducing over the last several editions, this is totally opposite in the case of the FIFA men’s World Cup,” David Gogishvili, a geographer at the University of Lausanne (Unil), told AFP.

The summer’s World Cup has been expanded to 48 teams for the first time. It will be played in three countries — Mexico, Canada and the United States — also for the first time.