Allie Rooney ’16
Sports Editor
In March 2011, the Fédération de Internationale de Football Association announced that the 2015 Women’s World Cup will be played in six different cities in Canada.
However, the location is not the issue of much recent debate; the controversy is the playing surface. FIFA decided that the entire soccer tournament will be played on artificial turf. This is the first time in the history of the World Cup, both men’s and women’s, that the tournament will be played on turf.
Several international players are outraged at this decision — so much so, that on Sept. 24, 2014 a group of top female players brought a lawsuit against FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association, claiming that the decision of forcing the women to play the pinnacle tournament of their careers displayed gender discrimination because “the men had always played on the real stuff and would do so for the foreseeable future.”
The players’ attorney, Hampton Dellinger, states that real grass could be installed at the six different World Cup stadiums for between $2 million and $3 million. The attorney is seeking an accelerated hearing sometime next month in order for a ruling to be issued in time for the turf to be changed before the tournament.
The players argue that men would boycott this decision and would, eventually, not be forced to play on these conditions. The women also point out that playing on the artificial turf, as opposed to grass, changes the game in a few different ways, the first being the increased likelihood of injury. Turf has been known to cause more injuries on sporting fields, including sprained ankles, concussions, turf burn, and turf toe. The threat of overheating is an additional health concern the players will face. Temperatures can be hotter on artificial surfaces than on natural grass. The increased risk of injury and the longer recovery period that the players would face if the tournament is to be played on turf is a particular concern because the tournament runs from June 6 to July 5, a tight timeframe in which many games will be played.
Another issue with playing on the turf, the players argue, is how it changes the speed and overall quality of the game. The way the ball bounces and the speed at which the ball travels is very different on turf than on grass. The players’ ability to slide tackle, a very important defensive technique, will be significantly harder on turf than it would be on grass.
FIFA spokesperson Tatjana Haenni has not made many comments regarding the issue. Haenni states that recent FIFA studies do not show any increase for injury when playing on turf, as opposed to grass. “We play on artificial turf and there’s no Plan B,” stated Haenni.
The FIFA rules state that matches can be played on artificial turf if special dispensation is granted, which is the case in Canada’s case. When Canada specified that the final match was to be held at Vancouver’s BC Place, which has artificial turf, FIFA announced that the rules state that all matches in a tournament must be played on the same kind of surface.
FIFA has appointed an examiner to make sure the playing conditions at each of the six venues meet the strict guidelines for this top-notch tournament. The examiner is traveling with a FIFA delegation currently inspecting the sites.
All that both parties can do now is to wait and see where the lawsuit takes them. Both FIFA and CSA have stated their high hopes for the success of this tournament. In 2012, the Women’s Gold Medal soccer game for the London Olympics drew 4.35 million viewers, making it the NBC Sports Network’s most watched event in the network’s history. Haenni stated that “we hope that this World Cup is the best women’s sport event ever.”
