Ecologistas en Acción turned to Viernes with an irresistible initiative.  They wanted to launch a campaign to ask Real Madrid to commit to combatting the climate crisis by taking the train to Valencia for its next match there instead of flying.

Valencia is a quick and easy train ride from Madrid. Less than two hours. No need to alter any of the team’s logistics.  At the same time, it saves no less than 8 tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. And it marks a huge plus in terms of sustainability given Real Madrid’s huge sway among the public.

Other teams, like FC Barcelona Atlético de Madrid, have already begun to reduce their air travel for destinations easily reached by ground transport. And Real Madrid’s women’s team uses rail travel conditions permitting.

If the goal was to lobby Real Madrid through the media to take on the challenge, we needed to reach its fans, placing Ecologistas en Accion’s own campaign in a discrete back seat by using Madrid fans to communicate.

We didn’t want to attack or blame the team but instead wanted to woo them. So we turned to a simple claim that all their supporters could embrace, and encouraged the team to travel by train.

Now if someone had to ask Madrid to do that, who could be better than a girl who is a die-hard Madrid supporters worried about the climate crisis? So we thought of the story of that girl, challenging Real Madrid to take the train instead of flying this time to its match in Valencia to pollute less. She would be the one to launch the campaign and play its leading role.

Thanks to Vera and Carlota for helping us give life to Martina.

The campaign comes with a petition and a letter sent to the Club’s President, Florentino Pérez, who doesn’t seem to have read it yet. But don’t worry. We’ll try again and there will be millions of us!