With less than seven months to go until it arrives in Canada, the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is generating national headline – but all anyone is talking about is turf.
Several of the planned venues for the event use artificial turf, a fact that seems to be unacceptable to a group of elite female players.
The group filed suit against FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) on Oct. 1 in the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal in Toronto and claim that playing their tournament on that type of surface amounts to gender discrimination under Canadian law. Men have always played on natural grass surfaces and lawyers for the group think that artificial turf increases the risk of injury and changes the game at its core.
The players suggest that tournament venues in Vancouver, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg replace their turf with permanent or temporary grass pitches for the event.
That’s all well and good but who is going to pay for this?
FIFA rules state that matches can be played on artificial turf if special designation is granted, which it was in Canada. This is an issue completely created by FIFA. They approved Canada and the CSA and Canadian venues were deemed to be appropriate.
The women need to realize that beggars can’t be choosers. Canada was essentially the only country that bid for this event, with long shot Zimbabwe withdrawing its application before a final vote. The fact is that no one else wanted to host this tournament.
You don’t seem to hear any of the women player whining about the field conditions on some of the club teams they play for. Many of the teams in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) play on turf surfaces. The women need to realize that with FIFA it’s all about money – just look at the Qatar World Cup bid.
The men’s tournament essentially funds the women’s tournament. If there was more money in the women’s game then natural grass wouldn’t be a problem. The sheer numbers of the men’s and women’s tournaments aren’t even comparable – 24 teams as opposed to 32, 52 instead of 64 matches and let’s not even get started on the profit differences.
Plus, Canada and its apparently unsafe surfaces seemed to do an acceptable job of hosting the U-20 women’s tournament this past summer.
Still, it’s not like FIFA can’t afford to lay some sod and grass – the 2014 men’s world cup reportedly had a profit of several billion dollars and it would apparently cost a few million dollars to sod all the turf fields being used.
Let’s just hope that the action on the field for the event is half as heated as it’s been off.
And if not, maybe our friends in Zimbabwe can step up to the plate…
