Ex-Arsenal keeper Rojas: football must fix its climate impact — SkimNews
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- Alexéi Rojas, 21, left Arsenal after eight years to join Penafiel in the Portuguese second tier, having been part of the goalkeeping department when Arsenal won the Premier League last season, training daily with David Raya and Kepa Arrizabalaga
- Rojas featured on Arsenal's bench twice under Mikel Arteta — once in the Champions League and once in the Carabao Cup — but never made a senior appearance for the club
- Rojas began lobbying for sustainability at Arsenal's Hale End academy by age 15, inspired by his mother who works in wind energy, and secured recycling bins, reusable bottles, compostable packaging, and reduced wasted energy at the training ground
- Rojas has spoken at the London School of Economics and the Net Zero Summit, and his goalkeeper gloves incorporate recycled materials, with the manufacturer donating to ocean plastic removal
- Rojas traveled to Kenya with Charity Boots to deliver donated kit, framing the initiative as solving both waste and inequality in access to football equipment
- The 2026 summer left grassroots UK pitches looking like deserts, with dry, bumpy surfaces deemed unplayable in parts of the country and delaying the start of the domestic season
Why it matters: Rojas is leveraging an elite-football résumé — bench appearances in the Champions League and Carabao Cup, a Premier League winners' medal via training with Raya and Arrizabalaga — to argue that climate inaction threatens the grassroots pipeline elite players depend on, citing delayed 2026/27 grassroots seasons from drought-baked UK pitches as evidence the game itself is at risk.
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