FUT 15 Coins governing
body for soccer has no plans to change the playing surfaces for next
year’s Women’s World Cup despite a human rights complaint filed by some
of the game’s top female players.
“There’s no plan to change the Fifa 15 xobx coins,”
said Tatjana Haenni, FIFA Deputy Director of the Competitions Division
and Head of Women’s Competitions, following an inspection tour of the
Investors Group Field Saturday where seven of the games will be played
next year. “As I’ve said several times, from the beginning when the
Canadian Soccer Association showed their interest to host this event,
artificial turf was part of their bid. We then went on this process and
it was decided that six stadiums would be used as proposed by the
Canadian Soccer Association.”
Earlier this week, a group of more
than 40 elite female soccer players – including U.S. women’s national
team members Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan – filed a legal challenge to
the Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal
alleging discrimination because the games will be played on artificial
turf.
The women allege that playing the sport’s premier tournament
on fake grass amounts to gender discrimination under Canadian law since
their male counterparts have always played the World Cup on natural
grass surfaces, and will for the foreseeable future. The players say
they believe there is a greater risk of injury on turf and that an
artificial surface impacts both how the game is played and how the ball
behaves.
But on Saturday, Haenni dismissed any suggestion that the pitches might be converted to grass.
In
fact, the facility in Moncton, N.B., was converted from grass to an
artificial surface to conform with the other venues in Winnipeg, Ottawa,
Edmonton, Montreal and Vancouver.
“The decision was made that all
the stadiums should have the same turf to give all the teams the same
facilities so that it would be a fair and equal treatment for all teams
because they will play in different venues and that was the reason to
have artificial turf in all of the stadiums,” said Haenni. “There’s no
plan to change that.”
FIFA has hired an independent consultant to
test the turf at all the stadiums hosting games including Winnipeg’s
Investors Group Field. The consultant carried out a similar test before
the U-20 men’s World Cup in Canada in 2007 which was also played on
artificial turf.
The prospect of a boycott by some of the best
female players in the world is also something Haenni didn’t want to get
drawn into.
“That’s not something that I can comment on,” she
said. “If they decide to boycott, then I can’t speak to that. We go on
with our work to show the world that Canada is ready to host a wonderful
World Cup and we want to show the world that women’s football is a
wonderful team sport and every girl should be able to play football. We
have to go on and make sure those messages get out there.”
The
2015 Women’s World Cup will be held June 6 to July 7 with the Winnipeg
playing host to seven games starting June 8. Ticket packages for the
Winnipeg matches have been on sale since Sept. 10.
“Runescape 2007 Gold’re
working closely with Canada Soccer and their lawyers are reviewing the
application (to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal) currently and any
applications that do come in,” said Chad Falk, head of the Winnipeg
organizing committee. “I’m just organizing my team to run the best event
possible for the Women’s World Cup next summer.”
