Confirmed: 2015 World Cup to be played on artificial surface

I'm curious to know when FIFA realizes that grass doesn't grow in 125° f weather, and the Qatar World Cup will be played on FIFA two star Turf.

 

You are misinformed. The u20 age group and U17 age group actually have a World Cup every two years, complete with confederation qualifiers and everything.

U 18, U19, u21, and u23 do not. I have noticed that UEFA has age group tournaments in some of those groups, but that is in UEFA only. There are no such championships in CONCACAF or COMNEBOL, For example and no World Cups. Find out what the rest of the world does.

The next women's Youth World Cups are listed as being in Canada and Costa Rica in 2014 on this page:
http://www.fifa.com/tournaments/index.html
There are no other Youth Cups listed.

Out of 1,028, according to FIFA, and that's only the pitches that are one and two star certified. I'll wager there are many more that aren't FIFA certified.

they do exist in Europe in quantities that Dwarf the western hemisphere and the rest of the world. There are 329 in UEFA, and 62 FIFA two Star pitches listed in the entire rest of the world.

Two Liga one teams play on them, AS Nancy, and FC Lorient. Top tier Teams in Germany , the Netherlands, Russia, and most other countries besides the Scandinavian ones play on Turf without it being a big deal. If it is like in this country, teams only complain about the pitch when they lose.

And UEFA has about twice as many (699) one star pitches, many of which appear to be the training pitches for Liga one teams. The rest of the world has 264. Several second and third tier French teams play on one star pitches.

Many one star pitches are constructed the same as the two star pitches, but aren't recertified every year. There is really no need to recertify a training pitch every year, and that costs about €50k. I suspect the lower tier teams also save recertification costs. Here, the Seattle Sounders and NE Patriots deferred recertification.( some say to the detriment of the pitch condition) and lost two star certification. All FIFA competitions must be on two star pitches.

FIFA keeps a data registry of every pitch that is FIFA rated, along with a listing of what type and brand it is, when it was registered, and when the FIFA certification is due to expire. Two Star pitches must be recertified every year. One star pitches every four or five years. In this country, it has seemed to be the practice to certify a training pitch as Two star, let the recert lapse, at which point the certification rolls over to one star. When that expires, the pitch is replaced and the process starts over.

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organ...ramme/footballturf/pitchesproducts/index.html

You can search by country or other criteria if you wish. Just tap or click on the numbers by each confederation.

And plastic is coming to European championships, like it or not, after a false start at it in the last Euros.
Stade Marcel Picot, where AS Nancy plays is scheduled for an upgrade to 35,000 seats and a roof in preparation for the 2016 European Championship. Plans are to keep it FIFA Two Star Turf.

So playing on Plastic is not only coming, but is already firmly embraced by UEFA. The idea that poor Europe will be disadvantaged by having to play on Canadian Turf is hogwash. If anything UEFA teams have a huge advantage in experience on artificial Turf. I'll bet it's why we haven't heard complaints from Euro players.

 

There have been many players from many different non US teams that have taken to Twitter to express their disapproval of artificial turf at the World Cup (players from England, Australia, Sweden, Spain, etc). Abby Wambach and some of the other Americans are speaking out because they are the most popular/influential team in the world and the one with the biggest amount of media coverage. It's a bigger deal when someone from the #1 team in the world speaks out loudly. I don't think anything will be done, but at least they are trying this early before the tournament.

 

Anyone who doesn't like playing on turf is more than welcome to not come.

 

I haven't seen any Euro players complain on twitter. Links welcome.

 

Tangentially to this, it is interesting that Crabby raises equality issues re the artificial turf yet ignores a more important factor. If the integrity of the game is at stake, why are there no male referees? Surely there must be a man who could be deemed one of the best (40 or so) refs in the world. Are all the best refs in the world, women?

One note, Canada's favourite referee, Norway's Christina Pedersen was not named one of the 40 "potential candidates” for inclusion in the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Strange, considering the fine job she did in London (2012) What was FIFA thinking?

 

What, you think the referee who did the OL/MHSC Cup semi wasn't good enough?

I wouldn't throw a number out other than at the professional referee level there are probably 100 male referees for every female, if not ten times that.

The NWSL has no interest in quality female referees either. The Mexican and Canadian federations have invested into the league but their experienced female referees are persona non grata. There is a preference for American male officials, some of whom have limited experience in the female game.

 

meet one of brasil's top celebrity ref ladies. maybe she makes her way to nwsl one day.


Ana Paula Oliveira




3:16

 

Is that why Kari Seitz has refereed more matches than any other official in the league? She has done two Olympics and four World Cups, I believe.

 

Kari Seitz is American. Despite the Mexican and Canadian federations investing in the league, it prefers male officials over experienced women.

 

It'll be interesting to see what a world cup match will look like, played in the snow on field turf.
Just one match, but you know it'll happen. I'm like the Nostradamus at making these predictions.

 

It's been like 500 years since he made his last one, if he is your model.

 

I didn't know Nostradamus was an ahole troll. The stuff you learn on these boards.

 

USMNT chose to play things safe while playing on art. turf: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/gold-cup-usmnt-vulnerable-players-092646582--mls.html

 

Klinsmann also included Holden as one of the vulnerable players, saying they would only call him if they really needed him. I guess they decided the game was too close at the half.

For the record, Gomez was also held out for the Panama game held on grass in Seattle because he hadn't yet recovered from concussion syndrome in a collision with Jamaica's Alan Gordon he acquired playing on grass against Jamaica.. His biggest injury in his career was a broken foot in 2002 playing for the USL Sounders. He spent the following year playing indoor soccer for the San Diego Sockers.

 

Onyewu's injury history show a tendon injury suffered in training for the USNT and In a World Cup qualifier draw against Costa Rica on October 14, 2009, Onyewu suffered a patellar tendon rupture on grass forcing him to miss the rest of qualifying. He also famously got in a fight with Zlatan Ibrahimovich after the latter made a hard tackle to his legs in practice. No word as to that was on grass or Turf.

 

Not quite how I read it:
"‘If we need you, come off the bench when things maybe open up a little bit.’" Sounds like they wanted to put him in after the game was in hand. i.e. a 3-1 lead. And with Belize not looking to be as defensive, it would open the game up more. Allowing Holden more space to play.

As for Gomez

http://www.starsandstripesfc.com/wo.../herculez-gomez-injury-usa-vs-panama-honduras

That was only a month ago. But I agree the concussion probably played a large role in the Panama game decision.

The point of the post was just to show that people still aren't as comfortable playing on turf as they are grass. And there is still discussion most likely with medical staffs that have them erring on the side of caution when it comes to people with previous leg injuries and playing on turf.

 

The point here is that whatever Klinsmann is comfortable with, Turf hasn't been shown to be any more dangerous to players than grass. The injuries all three players received were, in fact on grass, not turf, including the one Holden received on a hit from DeJong, the one Garcia received, or the one that Onyeyu received in the qualifier. Garcia played for the Sounders, and described that experience as one of the happiest of his career, and scores for his Mexican team against the Sounders on their crappy Turf field April 3.

When the Earthquakes got pasted earlier this year at Jeld Wen, the earthquakes, including Wondolowski bitched about everything about Jeld Wen, including that it is Turf and a whole 4 yards shorter than a FIFA World Cup pitch. I noticed that he didn't complain about the Turf last night and seems to have adapted to the length.

The Quakes pitch is one yard too big to be an official World Cup pitch. I wonder if anybody has bitched about that.

The issues had nothing to do with Tuf, whatever Klinnsmann claims. I get he doesn't like Turf, but using the injuries to these players was a red Herring.

 

No one is claiming players are immune to injuries while playing on grass. All I was getting at is amongst professionals grass is still the preferred surface. And I don't know that Klinsmann made the choice on his own. I venture the medical staff, had a good amount of input, and they also preferred not to chance injuries on a surface many still feel isn't on par with natural grass.

 

Yeah, you actually did more than intimate it was a preferred surface, you made the link that they were " playing it safe" and were held out from playing on Turf because the risk of injury. That's just not the case. None of their injuries have ever been linked to Turf. They got them playing on grass. They were held out in two cases because they weren't cleared to play on any surface, Gomez because he still hasn't been cleared for a concussion.


Holden got hammered by De Jong on grass. Gomez' contusion with Santos Lagunas was on grass, as was his head injury in the Panama Match, which would have happened on any surface. And when the USA played Costa Rica and Onyewu got hurt, that was also on grass.

Still waiting for Wondolowski's complaint about playing on Turf last night. He sounded pretty happy to be there and get cheered by the Timbers Army in disguise. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if they met his goals with silence.


The USA would not have played on that surface if they didn't offer the stadium as a Gold Cup venue. CONCACAF would not have approved it if the countries that were a party to the Gold Cup didn't approve.and watching that game, there were fewer surface related affects to the game than there were in Seattle last week when players were slipping on sod that ripped up.