fairly certain FIFA requirements are grass, not turf.
FIFA has been known to be flexible in their requirements. Just ask Qatar.
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They have waived those for North American events in the past, 2007 U-20 World Cup and 2015 Women’s World Cup both had many matches played on turf. At least for 2015 it was state of the art turf in Ottawa. The 2007 surface absolutely was not.
Interestingly, I just did a check of the other US stadiums…pretty much all of them have the same issue as MetLife in terms of being in boring neighborhoods. Kind of what you’d expect from a bid that relied so heavily on NFL stadiums I guess
Seattle is probably the best for that. The two Canadian ones aren’t bad either, both in downtown settings with lots of pedestrian access.
ironically, putting a football stadiums in the suburbs make sense. Keeps the fans out of downtown, traffic, etc.
Lack of cheaper available land, likely the real reason though.
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And often the city being unwilling to pump in billions in tax payer funds to pay for it whereas the suburban county might in the incorrect hope that it drives business to the area (it never does).
I disagree though that suburban stadiums are better. While US public transport isnt great, most NFL cities have at least some ways to get to their downtown that fans can use in a way that surburban stadiums never have. The downtowns also have a much better infrastructure for dealing with it, and seeing as the games are held on days where the game day traffic is a replacement for the normal traffic it isn’t THAT bad. Or at least in contrast with suburban stadiums where the infrastructure means there is typically only one viable exit in each direction to get the stadium necessitating a back up in a part of town where it is not expected.
St Louis did it right. The Rams have gone now but they used to have separate downtown stadiums for the Blues, Cards and Rams, all within about a mile from each other all in the heart of a downtown that could easily accommodate three very well supported franchises.
correct
the neighborhood around what I would consider one of the most famous stadiums in America (Yankee Stadium) is surprisingly very much a shithole.
Not at all what I expected.
The Bronx has been that forever, which is why the Yankees moved there in the first place from the Polo Grounds. Cheap land. But the recent trend has been toward very urban stadiums (Camden Yards replacing Memorial, Oracle Park replacing Candlestick) rather than lifeless rings in the middle of a suburban parking lit. That wave is just starting to hit the NFL (Atlanta has been mediocre for years, but their gate has improved dramatically with Mercedes-Benz Stadium).
when they rebuilt the new stadium, they did it across the street from the old ballpark and turned that land into a community park with little-league baseball diamonds.
not a yankees fan, but class act right there.
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There isn’t a lot of real estate even most football teams here and in Europe move out of town.
in 2019 I got to see Brentford v Leeds at their old stadium (Griffin Park), that was such a trip to be walking amongst row-homes and suddenly there’s a 12,000 seat stadium in the middle of residences.
Is this really healthy for that age of player?
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Is it healthy for a player of any age?
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No but under 17s going there to play every year away from their clubs?
And not having it in other places where FIFA would presumably be wanting to develop the game. It rather underlines that they are only interested in developing their bank accounts.
There’s a good rationale for switching this age group to every year. A biennial cycle makes it very difficult for players in the U16s during a WC year to ever make it to a WC so fully 50% of top young players are not getting the developmental benefit of it. They are also definitely not playing too much football at that age. If anything the common argument has been that there are not enough games of high enough level of competition for development of the top players.
The real issue here is the continued selling of the game to sportswashing entities whose climate is not hospitable to actually playing the game.
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as Limie says…its not the same players.
makes sense to hold it every year, why would kids born every other year only get the chance to play in a world cup.
i can even understand the same venue cycle…the cost involved in setting up a world cup that hardly anyone will attend would be prohibitive if you held it just the once (id imagine)
5 years might be a bit long, but i can see the sense in same venue for a period of time.
especially one that is reasonably central regarding travel.
hopefully theres no homosexuals who want to footy…