Prominent American and international players threaten to sue CSA over Women’s World Cup turf

The 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada could face a potential court challenge—over gender equity? Strangely enough, that seems to be the case. There have been rumblings for a while that many high-profile American and international players were upset about the event being held on artificial turf, with Megan Rapinoe of the U.S. calling it "bullshit", and those rumblings have now translated into threatened legal action. Jeff Kassouf of The Equalizer reported Tuesday that a group of approximately 40 top national team players have retained Canadian and American legal counsel, and that those lawyers sent a letter to FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association July 28 threatening legal action if a response wasn't received by August 4. As that date's now passed, it will be interesting to see what comes next. Here's the key part of the letter, addressed to Victor Montagliani and Peter Montopoli of the CSA and Sepp Blatter and Lydia Nsekera of FIFA, which Kassouf posted in its entirety here (PDF):

This is just the latest skirmish in soccer's grass-versus-turf wars, but it's worth keeping in mind that no Canadian players have joined the group of protesters. It's also interesting that many prominent American players (Abby Wambach, Alex Morgan and Heather O'Reilly are named) are involved in this, and that an American law firm is involved. The rivalry between the Canadian and American teams should certainly be taken into consideration here.

It's also notable that many of the complainants regularly play on turf. Morgan (Portland), Wambach (Western New York), O'Reilly (Boston) and Rapinoe (Seattle) all play for NWSL teams who play at FieldTurf stadiums. So, if turf presents such an injury threat, shouldn't they be threatening their own teams, where they'll play many more games than they will in the World Cup? However, the group of critics is wider than just the Americans, and the support of Germany's Nadine Angerer (the 2013 player of the year) and German coach Silvia Neid (the 2013 coach of the year) may bolster the case a bit.

What merit is there to the complaints about turf? Well, plenty of top-level women's and men's players have been griping about it for decades, preferring to play on natural grass. However, turf is almost a necessity in most North American stadiums; most soccer stadiums in Canada are also used for football, and turf can handle both sports, but grass can't. That means that many big soccer events, men's and women's, do tend to be played on turf (and FIFA has approved international games on high-quality turf).

The men's U-20 World Cup in Canada in 2007 had turf at three of its six fields (BMO Field in Toronto, which hosted the final, was turf then, as was Frank Clair Stadium in Ottawa and Olympic Stadium in Montreal), so that would seem to go against the argument that it's only women being forced to play on turf. Moreover, four of the six stadiums that will be used in 2015 also are home to CFL teams, so they certainly can't be permanently converted to grass. The exceptions are Montreal's Olympic Stadium (which is completely enclosed, meaning it also can't be permanently grass) and Moncton Stadium.

What's interesting is that FIFA not only approved the turf surfaces, but mandated them. According to this great piece Steven Sandor wrote last year, all World Cup matches (men's or women's) and training fields must be comprised of the same surface. That's why turf's being installed in Moncton (which is normally grass). Most of the Canadian stadiums can't go to grass, so the decision was made to make them all turf, and that was in the CSA's bid for this World Cup. When the World Cup was awarded to Canada in 2011, it was well-known it would be on turf. So the complaints are coming in a bit late, to be sure.

How do you get around playing high-level international soccer on turf when your biggest stadiums need turf surfaces? The traditional approach in the U.S. has been to truck in temporary grass fields just for the duration of the tournament. However, that doesn't always work out so well. Consider what the grass looked like in Cowboys Stadium during the 2013 Gold Cup or in Ford Field during the 2011 Gold Cup. Neither of those surfaces would seem preferable to high-quality turf, and temporary grass is all that would be possible in Canada thanks to the CFL.

Even that would come with challenges. While the Women's World Cup will be played in June 2015 and most of it will take place before the CFL regular season starts, there's still the CFL preseason to think of. Changing surfaces back and forth would likely be a disaster. Thus, this doesn't really seem to be about the CSA or FIFA not putting in money because this is a women's event. It's also notable that the men's World Cup has seen plenty of stadium issues of its own, from the heat and poor fields in Brazil this year to the event-threatening heat expected in Qatar in 2022. Despite the complaints, playing on FieldTurf in Canada sounds much better than playing on terrible grass in the jungle of Manaus, as many of the men's teams did this year. So, it's hard to see FIFA as singling out the women's tournament for poor conditions.

Will this threat of legal action go anywhere? It seems unlikely it will accomplish much, especially as FIFA president Blatter spoke favourably of turf Monday (he was in Toronto ahead of the U-20 Women's World Cup to talk about it and maybe even Canada's plans to bid for the 2026 World Cup), calling it "the future." (A Kassouf piece from May also contains an interesting line on the grass vs. turf wars, saying "The topic is polarizing and always a losing prospect for players, who are forced to argue the aesthetics of how they feel – something only they, not fans or administrators, feel – against science." Arguing feelings against science always works out so well!) The CSA and FIFA are both in favour of turf surfaces for 2015, and the gender equity argument doesn't seem to hold much weight, especially considering that there was a high-level men's tournament partly played on turf in Canada in 2007.

It's worth mentioning that Canadian courts have declined to intervene in international sports organizations' business before, too; in particular, the lawsuit brought by women's ski jumpers in an attempt to participate in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver would seem to have much stronger gender-equity grounds, but it was shot down by the B.C. Supreme Court. In that case, justice Lauri Ann Fenlon found that women were discriminated against, but that the International Olympic Committee was "beyond the reach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" and that the Vancouver Organizing Committee was duty-bound to abide by IOC rulings. It's not even clear that there's actual discrimination going on here, but even if that was found, it would seem likely that a similar ruling might be handed down; Canadian courts don't have power over FIFA, and FIFA is telling the CSA what to do here. Still, anything is possible, and we probably haven't heard the last of this debate. If the players follow through with their threatened legal action, this will be a key story to watch ahead of the Women's World Cup.

(Thanks to Neate Sager for the heads-up here.)