September 11 – The head of FIFA’s Task Force for Women is taking a diplomatic approach to the outcry over the use of synthetic pitches at the next year’s women’s World Cup in Canada.
About 40 top players have signed a petition and threatened legal action if matches are not played on grass.
FIFA executive committee member Moya Dodd (pictured), who played for Australia before moving into football administration, is sympathetic to their case but says Canada was by far the best bid.
Dodd told the BBC: “Of course I have sympathy with players who want to play in the best conditions. But the important thing is to ensure that the tournament will be played in the best facilities available. Certainly, the World Cup is being played in the country with the best bid.”
The petition has been signed by a string of key players who claim they were misled by FIFA into believing that traditional playing surfaces would be provided if there was significant opposition to the artificial pitches.
But Dodd added: “In some countries, (artificial turf) is the best or only viable option in order to host a World Cup, so I don’t think you can exclude it on that basis. I’ve played on synthetic turf and it’s been better than a lot of the grass pitches I’ve played on. It’s easy to generalise around the quality of turf, and those generalisations aren’t always accurate. It’s important to be open to technological advancements that make football better and more accessible.”
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