John Gilham, chief executive officer of FieldTurf, is proud that 22 FieldTurf facilities have been approved by FIFA to play host to international soccer events, and he's hoping Papa John's Cardinal Stadium will join that list. "We've heard so much from the mayor and folks downtown that international soccer wants to use our facility," Jurich said. "So we're very anxious to see where all that leads." Hopefully now Louisville will get some international friendly games. The women's team filled Papa John's stadium three years ago. http://www.courier-journal.com/cjsports/news2003/08/06/spt-front-turf0806-9847.html
what about the lines? I wonder if the gridiron is permanently painted or sewn into the grass? I can't imagine why FIFA would overlook this. I also wonder how many of these fields are in the USA.
Hmm. Good question. I find it really distracting to watch soccer games played on fields with football lines on them. I can't imagine FIFA would sanction that.
Giants Stadium has a system that allows for 24-hour change between markings. Since this is new, I'm assuming they have the same ability. http://jets.theinsiders.com/2/95773.html A big thing to watch is the U-17 tournament where some matches, including the final, will be played on FieldTurf. The CWorld tour showed that teams who train on these types of surfaces still don't want to play games on them. So if the U-17 experiment is a success, maybe more games will come to FieldTurf stadiums. But for now, the SOP is to lay sod down instead of playing on them, like they did in Seattle and East Rutherford.