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Denmark's male footballers have decided to refuse a pay rise for playing for the national team in order to ensure their female counterparts get equal basic pay
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- Title
- Danish union agrees equal pay deal with FA
- Published
- Jun 14 2024
- Word count
- 257 words
At first I thought that this was another equality vs equity push in sports within the professional ranks of men/women. However if you read the article, I think the point here is how the female players are getting kicked in the chin and the their male counterparts are taking a stand against that, bravo to them. It's the same thing that bugged me in the World Cup for women held in Canada. I couldn't believe FIFA allowed artificial turf to be used in Canada's hosting of the world cup. I know it's the norther parts of the world, grass maybe hard to manage etc., but that to me was crazy. Hated it, and made my Canadians friend very aware of how bad of an idea that was - that would have never happened if that were the male players.
For those of us not in the know, could you elaborate on the issues with artificial turf? I’ve genuinely never heard of this.
It's unheard of at that level. The ball rolls faster, your cleats were designed for grass so you run weird (look below a cleat, it has "teeth" that sink into the grass for support), you slide faster so you gotta recalibrate your tackles meaning more risk of injury when you miss the ball and hit some leg.
To me, it's like a different sport.
It also turns out that artificial grass has direct impact on your health.
I'm not too into football outside of maybe watching when my own country plays, but I've heard enough about it to know it's extremely important. Outside of what @lou says about artificial turf, there is even a lot of difference about the types of real grass.
I half-jokingly called this guy a nerd the first time I heard about it, and I apologized immediately because that wasn't how I meant it and I can see it's insensitive - but between you and me and tildes, it's genuinely one of the nerdiest things I'd ever heard! But yeah it does mean a lot in elite play. Just not something I'd ever really thought about as a layman lol
I found that interesting so I did a search.
This is what a supposedly professional referee had to say on Quora. Sounds legit:
An image of a professional player with burns from playing on artifical grass. Found on a /r/soccer post from 10 years ago.
Yes, artificial turf burns! When I played decades ago it was very easy to get nasty injuries just by making contact with the grass. I didn't mention it because I was sure it had gotten better. Not enough, apparently.
Women’s soccer World Cup in Canada faces human rights showdown over artificial turf (2014).
Redditors who have played soccer on artificial pitches, help me understand why professionals hate them so much.
apologies, i don't login all the time, i think @lou answered it better than me but basically women's world cup held in Canada 2015 was played in the pitch of turf. Imagine having to play on top of a hot surface, outside in the middle of the day with the sun on your head. Not to mention that prior to that everyone was playing in natural floor like grass so the whole game was different not to mention the injuries that incur because of playing in a pitch that is harder, catches and burns your leg when sliding or falling on it. It was a crazy idea to have it and the fact that it was done in a world cup tournament (which is top tier football) is to me unbelievable. I wish more professional players, women or men, spoke out against it at the time.
It's really hard on the knees too. I have a partial tear in my meniscus because of playing on an artifical turf myself. I know many people who got ACL tears because of playing on turf as well.
That's insane. That's the first time I hear of an official match on artificial grass. Not even in subdivisions. Ultimately, if you can't have a match on grass, than you can't have a match.
I don't know what the subdivisions are, but turf is allowed below the EFL. Sutton United had artificial turf before winning promotion from the National League and then they installed hybrid turf for play in the EFL.
It is allowed by FIFA everywhere.
Right, but it is explicitly banned in the EFL and EPL. I figured "subdivisions" must be something having to do with English soccer.
Yeah. With the exception of club owners trying to save a buck, it's total shit and everyone hates it.
Thanks for excluding northern latitudes from playing the game, then. It was fun while it lasted.
I started to type a long comment but decided a shorter one will do. In certain climates, it's extremely hard to maintain a good year round grass pitch and in those cases, artificial is simply better. A frozen patch of dirt or a muddy swamp full of ankle murdering dumps is way worse to play on than artificial grass. In my childhood the alternative was often gravel, which is worse still. It's not unheard of at the highest level: BSC Young Boys of Switzerland played in the Champions League on artificial turf this season. Bayern Munich's youth academy trains on artificial.
I agree that natural grass is superior when climate and economy allow for it. But if they don't, you have to allow artificial. Otherwise you're just straight up excluding certain geographic regions from the game.
Why would I prohibit anyone from playing football? If anything, you could charitably presume that my criticism goes in the direction of providing enough resources that allow everyone to play on adequate pitches, and not that I wish for these games to not take place. This post is in the context of women players not receiving the same compensation as men. I am, of course, talking about the World Cup, which is the highest competition of the sport, commanding a status that should allow for real grass. I don't recall any complaints about the grass in the 2018 Men's World Cup, which took place in Russia. I imagine that it is not easy to maintain natural grass in Russia. I cannot speak to the economic and geographical conditions of these teams that you mentioned, but I doubt very much that their players would prefer artificial turf to well maintained real grass. There seems to be a consensus that natural is vastly better, as I indicate in another comment.
I truly didn't intend to be uncharitable. Let me work you through how I interpreted your comment:
Forgive me then for thinking you're saying you don't want even lower divisions of professional football to play if they don't have a grass pitch. Hopefully you see that the way you wrote your comment, my interpretation wasn't exactly going out of its way to twist your words, which wasn't my intention. I won't pursue that further though since you clarified it wasn't what you meant.
You are right though that there is a double standard. The men's WC in 2026 in Canada/US/Mexico will entail millions spent in developing new types of hybrid grass to replace the artificial turf in some of the Canadian and US venues, including US indoor venues. Unfortunately the money simply didn't exist for that in women's football in 2015. You can't compare Canada's women's WC to Russia's sportswashing extravaganza, but I do see the hypocrisy. Drawing in human rights, though, as mentioned in a link in your previous comment, is frankly laughable. Human rights is for real issues, not the relatively minor issue that is literal turf wars in sports. Plenty of professional male footballers do ply their trade on turf. They are not in the same category as actual human rights violations.
The reason this topic annoys me so much is that football in my country would be absolute shit if artificial turf didn't exist. Nobody, certainly not me, would argue it's actually superior to grass in ideal conditions. However, those conditions (economic and climatological) simply do not exist here most of the time. The crusade against artificial turf would severely limit the ability of certain clubs to compete internationally, despite proving that in fact they're good enough to do so. It would be insanely unfair.
There are very real issues with artificial turf and the biggest one isn't injuries or the speed or bounce of the ball, it's the environmental pollution. The rubber pellets go everywhere and they're a major threat to nature. The EU is looking to ban rubber granulate, the most common form of filling for artificial turf pitches, in the near future. Research is ongoing to replace it, but unfortunately the alternatives tested so far have been fairly, well, shit. It would be nice if, along with spending millions to develop new types of grass for a 1-month tournament, we spent some millions on developing environmentally friendly, and hopefully more human friendly artificial turf as well, not just demonize it because it would be nice if everyone had perfect conditions and infinite money to have grass everywhere.
Rant over, sorry, it's a topic that I've seen a million times on reddit but never typed out a real response to.
Please understand that this is way more important to you than it is to me. I am not in a "crusade", I wasn't aware there was a crusade, and if I knew about it, I would probably not get into this subject at all. Being the target of emotional romps is greatly distressing to me. I tend to avoid controversial subjects, but sometimes fail to identify something as controversial. I never talk about football online, and I am not part of whatever context that you find so upsetting. With the exception of the day artificial turf turned a small bit of my leg into a steak, this is literally first time I ever talked about artifical turf with someone. I apologize for upsetting you.
Fair enough. It's not a major topic I spend my time thinking about, it's just something that is a bit annoying every time it pops up and every time I say nothing, and usually nobody else expresses my viewpoint either, it annoys me a tiny bit more. I said my piece now though. I'll let you off the hook and not drag it out. I didn't mean to upset you and you didn't mean to upset me, it's just how it goes.
Interesting point on your play experience. I know that turf is used in amateur leagues/play or in semi-pro to pro leagues but for me it was a bit shocking to see it in a WC tournament. That was first for me and bit disappointed with Canada's football association solution. Keep in mind that it was summer and grass while harder to maintain, not impossible. I've played on turf and I don't like it, especially if the sun is out. I prefer playing in dirt pitch with rocks which I've played on. Didn't mean to down vote turf or your experience. It was also annoying that at the time of Canada '15 WC, in my circles I was the only one annoyed by it and at least to my recollection nobody on TV or Pro ranks spoke out against it. Going back to the article, glad that players (men and women) are speaking up on the disparity approach.