BANGALORE: An artificial soccer turf is being laid at the Bangalore Football Stadium. It’s time to ponder over its real utility and look into its problems, in terms of the game, the players and spectators. Yes, the eye-sore that are potholes will be a thing of the past. But there is more to it.
According to reports, some football clubs in Europe installed synthetic surfaces in the 1980s and they were cynically called “plastic pitches” but the English FA banned them in 1988 as fans and players disapproved of the same. The first artificial turfs were far harder than grass and caused injuries, especially to the joints.
In 1981, London club Queens Park Rangers installed an artificial one. By the mid 80s, four artificial surfaces were in operation in England. But as the ball pinged around like it was made of rubber, the players kept losing their footing, and anyone who fell over risked carpet burns. Fans complained that the game was awful to watch and all the clubs returned to natural grass. In the 1990s many North American soccer clubs also removed their artificial surfaces and re-installed grass, while others moved to new stadiums with better-suited grass surfaces.
The use of the turf was later banned by FIFA, UEFA and by many domestic football associations, though, in recent years, both governing bodies have shown renewed interest in their use provided that they are what is termed as “FIFA Recommended”. UEFA has now been heavily involved in programs to test turf with tests made in several grounds meeting with FIFA approval. FIFA 2-Star approved turfs have been in places in some club stadiums as FIFA launched its FIFA Quality Concept in February 2001.
A full international fixture for the 2008 European Championships was played in October 2007 between England and Russia on an artificial surface, installed to counteract adverse weather conditions at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow. But the game was not the same and UEFA ordered that the 2008 European Champions League final hosted at the same stadium in May 2008 must take place on grass.
So a temporary natural grass field was installed just for the final. UEFA stressed that artificial turf should only be considered an option where climatic conditions necessitate.
In 2009, FIFA launched the FIFA Preferred Producer Initiative to improve the quality of artificial football turf at each stage, manufacturing, installation and maintenance. As such, five manufacturers were selected by FIFA, Limonta, ACT Global Sports, GreenFields, Desso and Edel Grass to produce and guarantee quality surfaces.
It looks as though FIFA is thrusting upon countries like India what other countries have rejected. For soccer officialdom in India is prepared to buy all their arguments without any questions asked.
As late as June 2009, US national team manager Bob Bradley has been quoted as calling upon FIFA to “have some courage” and ban artificial surfaces as it caused injuries.
Santosh Kashyap, the former Mahindra, Maharashtra and India midfielder said that there can be no substitute to natural grass. “Players have had blisters playing on the newly-installed surface at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. I don’t know how the ones in Bangalore and other places will be. Yet, I personally feel there is nothing like playing on natural grass. At least the players have no psychological fear,” Kashyap pointed out.
Surfaces can be ‘water-based’ as in hockey. It could be ‘sand-dressed’ as the carpet pile is filled to within 5-8 mm of the tips of the fibre with fine sand. Or the carpet is filled almost to the top with sand. But evaluation of play has suggested that the field is rough and hard and that the ball travels at lesser speeds making it rather disturbing for all and sundry. Players will perforce have to spend more energies on such surfaces compared to what they do on natural grass.