Alex Morgan is worried.
The Women’s World Cup is eight months away, but FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association are not backing down from their decision to play matches on artificial turf next year.
Morgan is one of more than 40 international soccer stars who have filed a lawsuit against FIFA and the CSA, alleging gender discrimination since the men’s World Cup is still played on grass. It was with passion that she decided to get involved in the movement for health reasons.
“Not only are these injuries lasting, but playing on grass has long-term effects,” said the 25-year-old US national team forward. “The pain, which takes longer to recover than on natural grass, the tendons and ligaments are, for me at least, I feel more sore after grass. It takes longer to recover on grass pitch than on natural grass.”
Recovery time can be critical during a month-long World Cup, says Morgan, who with the U.S. team begins play Wednesday in the CONCACAF tournament.
“If you make it to the final, that’s seven games in a month,” she says of the World Cup. “That’s a lot of games for grass-court players, so it’s a huge difference for our bodies to adapt to.
“If the men’s World Cup didn’t allow it and they built new stadiums – without even putting in grass pitches, they built new stadiums with a few billion dollars – you would think we were worth the few million to invest .in the fields of grass.”
Turf versus grass
Dr. Michael Freitas, associate professor of clinical orthopedics and team physician for the Western New York Flash (which plays on grass), says it’s hard to say whether there’s actually a difference between playing on artificial turf and on natural grass in terms of injuries.
“One of the problems is that not all courts are created equal,” Freitas says, citing studies across multiple sports. “I think the jury’s still out. I don’t think there’s enough information right now to say one is better than the other.”
He said that over the past year, the Flash suffered three serious injuries on three different surfaces – turf and two different types of turf.
“It illustrates the fact that we don’t really know if one is better than the other,” he says. “But according to many players I’ve spoken to, artificial surfaces can be harder, less cushioned, and they may experience more pain than a true catastrophic ligament rupture. I don’t know if these symptoms are captured in the studies we see.
This is mostly what Morgan experienced firsthand.
“When I play on grass, my body doesn’t hurt,” she says. “It can get sore, but it doesn’t throb and my legs don’t hurt. When I play on grass, my legs can throb and hurt for 24 hours and it can take 3-5 days to recover, so that on grass, after 24 hours, I am ready to play again.”
Morgan, however, has seen her teammates suffer season-ending injuries that she blames on the turf. She remembers Portland Thorns teammate Nikki Marshall tearing her ACL after getting “trapped in the turf” while planting her foot. The turf didn’t give way like natural grass would have, she said.
Freitas says there’s some truth to that.
“When your foot hits the grass and you twist, your foot is going to come out of contact with the ground more easily than on an artificial surface,” he says. “So that rotation is then taken up in your ligament, which can rupture, as opposed to your foot breaking contact with the grass, which allows that force to dissipate.”
“What are you inhaling?” »
This is not the only problem with artificial turf. Black beads embedded in the turf, called rubber crumbs, can also cause unnecessary health risks to players, according to a recent report from NBC Nightly News. Rubber crumbs consist of chopped up pieces of used tires. Tires can contain carcinogens and chemicals such as benzene, carbon black and lead, among other substances. There is evidence that exposure to these materials can cause cancer, according to a former player and coach, who has tracked cases among football players.
Ethan Zohn, a former goalkeeper and winner of the third season of “Survivor” in Africa, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2009. He has been in remission since 2012. He didn’t think to associate it with football or to the turf until it meets more. goalkeepers with blood cancers. He started keeping a list and it now has 52 names, including 46 goalkeepers. Not everyone gets blood cancer, but lymphoma and leukemia are the most common, he says.
“The goalkeepers are mostly on the ground,” he says. “Your face is in it, you breathe the dust, you eat a little bit of it, your scrapes get filled with the stuff. I don’t know. Nobody’s really studied it.”
Through his list, Zohn met Amy Griffin, an assistant football coach at the University of Washington. While visiting Seattle Children’s Hospital with the Huskies every year, Griffin met several football players with cancer and began to notice that there were a lot of goalies.
“I know it could be completely random,” Griffin says. “I’m not trying to tear down the turf, I just think it’s my obligation that when parents come to me, I need to know more. One time I was at (Seattle) Children’s with someone who was going through chemo, and a nurse came by and said, “You’re the fourth goalie I’ve had chemo this week.” And that’s probably when that I kept talking about it until someone listened.”
Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, an environmental watchdog group, says agencies won’t do more research until they see more turf-related injuries. PEER urged the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to conduct more studies on the topic.
Ruch acknowledges that he is neither a scientist nor a doctor, but he believes that FIFA and the CSA should not ignore the issue.
“The fields smell bad,” he said. “It’s a strong chemical smell. What are you inhaling? We really don’t know. You would want the answer to this question before installing them, especially in areas where there are children or athletes in high stress situations.”
Question of fairness
CONCACAF play begins Wednesday with matches scheduled in Kansas City, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia, all on grass. With three teams qualifying from CONCACAF, the United States is all but assured of a berth in next year’s Women’s World Cup, the first to be held in Canada.
Last week, the CSA opposed a request for an expedited hearing into whether the use of turf at the World Cup discriminated against women. Canadian Soccer officials say artificial turf is approved by FIFA and there is “no proven increased risk” to players compared to playing on grass.
Hampton Dellinger, the lawyer representing the elite players, accused the CSA and FIFA of “delaying tactics” in an attempt to avoid a final court decision. He urged organizations to spend money on providing natural grass pitches “rather than the plastic pitches which even the most casual fans know have no place at the premier football tournament”.
Morgan says the players haven’t even thought about the boycott because it’s the biggest stage for their sport.
“It wouldn’t even be a problem for a men’s World Cup,” she said, adding that the men would boycott if turf was at stake for their flagship event. “FIFA would never allow this to happen on the men’s side, so I don’t think they should allow this to happen on the women’s side.”
