Message Board - Artificial Turf: Artificial turf for SA 2010

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/africa/7239653.stm

Sepp's been at it again....

Is this a good idea or a bad idea?

I personally think if it solves a problem then why not, but the biggest issue I find from playing hockey on astro is the lack of maintenance after they are laid and then used. There is little!

I know the gen 3 pitches are deeper pile but they still need tending to (unfortunately no good for hockey)

Dinga

Listening to Talk Sport this morning, Mike Parry was alluding to WHY FIFA would want artificial surfaces in SA 2010. It probably has much to do with the royalties that FIFA charge synthetic companies for endorsing their surfaces.

It can't be for any other reason can it?

I mean the sports surfaces in SA for the Rugby World Cup were superb, the country has money and can afford to build state of the art pitches, with full irrigation.
The climate is reasonably temperate as well and when the event is held, they won't be in any rainy season.

Mr Blatter limply uses the African Nations Cup as an excuse for the need for artificial pitches. I know that the Ghanains have had some advice and support there because the pitches while not perfect were an awful lot better than they would have been 10 years ago. And better than many eastern european pitches that we see on the TV.

With more advice and expertise, as well as some financial help these pitches would have been quality even for a poor African country.

The bottom line is that the players want good natural turf pitches, not plastic (look at the American NFL players vote)
Has the World Cup become so commercial that someone has to pay to have their surface in there?

Totally agree with you dave and you know my opinions on the subject-but blatter is now not even trying to do things underhand he has the bare faced cheek to speak in public.

Matt,
I've just been speaking with Frank Boahene, who has been out in Accra, Ghana-helping to improve all their stadium surfaces for 18 months.
He said that FIFA officials approved all the pitches including heght of cut, prior to each ANC game.
They are on the equator and temperatures out there have been very hot. It has been difficult to water the pitches to the leveles that he'd like because of the usual officialdom/pre-match entertainment etc that precedes each game.
That said, the pitches were nothing more than hard dust bowls, prior to the Ghanain FA bringing Frank in to help and advise.

They lack all basic amenities, including machinery and you have to put in perspective the fact that it's hard to justify using water to irrigate a pitch, when the local community have to walk 5 miles to get drinking water.

However as Frank put it to an audience in Berlin a few years ago, when asked about the locals water needs over growing grass for footballers. "When Ghana play and win, because they have a decent pitch, the local population forget about the hunger and thirst that they suffer for a while"

Has there been anyone looking at the statistics of the number of young athletes who have picked up joint injuries, particularly knee ligament damage, playing hockey on astroturf as opposed to grass ?

Well I personally think that astro doesn't make much difference to injuries. I have played on both and more injuries come from the fact there are more games on astro than there were on grass as leagues have expanded. There are, however, a lot of truly awful astros with ripped or holed carpets, poor carpet pile and no cushioning. There are probably two people I know who have had ligament damage from hockey and I have played for 16 years.

You don't get it so much as there is no lunging like there is in football. I got an knee injury once but that was through over exuberance as I came charging out of my goal! Flattening my own defender wasn't the best choice.

I agree with Dave's comments - it's not right that they water a football pitch when many locals have to walk to get their water! We are lucky in this country to have it sent to our houses and we can all be more careful.

Sorry but dont buy comments on watering of grass-things are not that bad out there,(not you guys fifa I mean) it is not Ethipia or somalia, its Ghana. Did you ever consider how much water is used for flushing and rinsing toilet systems in a full 30-50000 seat stadium? If they build a stadium for say $100 mill usd and a major point of contention and money conservation is use of irrigation water over the course of a year then its ridiculous. And we all know it, artificials for 100% community use fine, whatever, but we all know the money in football and how little pitch maintenance costs in comparison to player maintenance! At pro level its being promoted not because they will make any money-there are not hundreds of thousands of stadiums-there are however hundreds of thousands of regular none pro football pitches all over the world. Thus fifa want them in stadiums as a shop window to get them in everywhere there is a living bit of grass on the planet.
Thats why they are pushing so much and thts what makes me and no doubt most of you angry because it is blatant greed with total disregard for our craft and profession!

Are they going to get the stadiums built in time?

SA is currently having Load Shedding - where there is not enough electricty to go around and that whole sections of citys are turned off at whim!

Chaos reigns at traffic lights, Small businesses are folding left right and center.

Minister of Minerals and Energy solution to load shedding is " that all South Africans should go to bed earlier so that they could grow and become "cleverer". ( SA Parliament Jan 30)


Will the 2010 World Cup be lost to South Africa due to the power crisis ?

Despite rumours and suggestions to the countrary, Government insists that South Africa's staging of the 2010 World Cup is not at risk due to the power crisis.

It is a Fifa requirement that all stadiums have generators and that all areas of the country that are critical to the Soccer World Cup have secure electricity supplies.

Government cannot, however, guarantee that there won't be power cuts - or load shedding - in other parts of the country during this time.

Hope the punters like camping !

For those of you who dont know this is how plastic grass was invented for sports use, although it existed as ornamental carpet sive the early 50's.

"Grass, as a stadium surface, first died in 1965, when Houston opened the Astrodome, the first indoor stadium. Its 4,800 skylights let in plenty of sun to make the grass grow. But the Houston Colt 45's (renamed the Astros) were blinded by the light. They couldn't catch the fly balls. So the skylights were tinted and a quarter of them were blacked out. And the grass died."

"Houston put out a call for grass-growers like the Scotts Company of Ohio to come up with an answer. But before they could find a solution, the Monsanto Company of St. Louis wove a plastic rug, and Chemgrass (renamed Astroturf) became the field of choice for the indoor stadiums that followed, and for many outdoor ones as well."