UK Footballer Hector Bellerin Plants 58,617 Trees In The Amazon

Héctor Bellerín, a Spanish sports star known for playing for Arsenal FC, has recently completed a campaign with One Tree Planted which will see 58,617 new trees planted in the dwindling Amazon rainforest.

For clarity, Bellerín is a football player. I know we Americans like to call this sport “soccer,” but in the UK (and basically every other country) they disagree with our nonsense naming of sports.

Nomenclature aside, the footballer agreed to plant 3,000 new trees for every time Arsenal won a game in the last football season. UK betting firm Paddy Power playfully agreed to plant 6,000 trees every time Arsenal DIDN’T win.

I’m not a huge sports fan, but I’ll fan the flames of tribalism if it means more trees in the Amazon.

According to One Tree Planted, “Hector’s contribution is supporting a much larger reforestation project that we have in the works with the Black Jaguar Foundation in Brazil, and other partners, to plant trees in Central Brazil’s Araguaia Biodiversity Corridor. The objective is to create natural resilience in this important ecosystem and restore over 1 million hectares by planting over 1.7 billion trees.”

In the end, a whopping 58,617 trees have agreed to be planted by both Hector and Paddy Power, among other Arsenal fans showing their support.

I’d like footy more if it was like this.