The United States women’s national soccer team recently traveled to Hawaii to host Trinidad and Tobago in a friendly match, but the game was cancelled after the US women had concerns over the safety of the playing surface.
The team had already voiced their concerns about playing on artificial turf, especially considering the US Men’s team always plays on real grass, but the pitch was apparently in such rough shape that they felt it significantly jeopardized their safety.
Reports suggest that the turfs seams were pulling apart and there were sharp pellets embedded in the turf. Players were also likely upset that star midfielder Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL on a grass practice field one day earlier. Some team members suggested the practice field also had unsafe conditions. Between the unsafe conditions and the loss of a teammate on a questionable surface, the team decided to draw the proverbially line in the Hawaiian sand. They informed U.S. Soccer officials that they wouldn’t play on the field, and the game was cancelled.
“We have become so accustomed to playing on whatever surface is put in front of us,” the team wrote in an open letter posted Monday on The Players’ Tribune. “But we need to realize that our protection — our safety — is priority No. 1.”
Artificial Turf vs. Grass
Last year we published a blog that analyzed injury statistics in Italian Men’s soccer clubs based on the type of surface they played on. Researchers found that there was no statistical difference in injury rates between the two surfaces, so why is it such a big deal for the women’s team? It’s because they feel that they are being treated differently than the men’s national team.
And they are.
The men’s national team doesn’t play on artificial turf, and in the event a match is to be played at the stadium with artificial turf, natural sod is laid down, no matter then cost. On the other hand, the women’s team is slated to play eight of their next 10 games on artificial turf.
Star forward Alex Morgan told reporters that she encouraged teammates to speak up about unsafe conditions and ask “whether we should be playing on it if the men wouldn’t be playing on it.”
This isn’t a new fight for the women’s team either. A group of top female soccer stars sued FIFA and organizers of the 2015 World Cup for discrimination, claiming that the men always get real grass while the women get turf. The suit was filed more than a year before the World Cup, but because the women never suggested boycotting the world’s biggest soccer event, the event took place before the suit could make any headway.
It appears that the boycott of the match in Hawaii has made waves in the US soccer community. A spokesman for FIFA said none of the international soccer games hosted by the US in 2016 will be on artificial turf.
Related source: NY Times