How FIFA saved the grass for Matildas history after Origin chaos

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High up in the stands among 80,000 fans who were baying for Queensland blood in the final State of Origin match last month, one man couldn’t bear watching.

He knew it was going to be an uncomfortable night given his impending assignment, but it was only when the match finished did he realise the enormity of his task.

Out came the presentation stage with event managers and their crew. Players were joined by their families and staff from both states along with the obligatory NRL officials and sponsors.

“I was a nervous wreck when I sat and watched [Origin],” joked Alan Ferguson, the man responsible for overseeing all the stadium surfaces for the World Cup.

“I was probably the guy with the blindfold on at the end of the game because I’d seen enough.”

Ferguson, FIFA’s senior pitch management official, will be in charge of the surface at Stadium Australia for the Matildas’ historic semi-final against England on Wednesday night, and the final on Sunday, the biggest sporting event held in Australia since the Sydney Olympic Games.

A general view of the Sydney Football Stadium during the FIFA Women’s World Cup.Credit: Matt King – FIFA via Getty Images

It hasn’t come without enormous challenges, most notably having the Matildas’ opening game of the tournament played at Stadium Australia, just eight days after Origin, instead of the Sydney Football Stadium due to the demand for tickets.

But when you spend big on holding a successful tournament, no detail is left to chance when it comes to the stage for the likes of Sam Kerr, Alex Morgan and Lauren James to shine.

FIFA not only took a leap of faith in bringing the tournament to Australia and New Zealand, they did so knowing it would be played in a southern hemisphere winter, in which grounds would have had to wear months of activity from other football codes, under winter sun. Most major football tournaments are played during a northern hemisphere summer.

So for the first time in World Cup history, FIFA brought giant pitch covers with them, which have been used to guard several venues from downpours, including the Sydney Football Stadium.

The process for growing turf to be bedded down in the venues has also been problematic.

For example, the grass used for Stadium Australia is usually grown at a farm on the outskirts of Sydney for more than a year before it is laid, but the NSW floods early in 2022 meant they had to come up with a backup plan, and an alternative turf facility was found in Victoria.

It was laid in the stadium a month before the World Cup, which meant three NRL matches were played on it before Origin.

“I’m not going to lie, our biggest challenge has clearly been rugby union, NRL and Aussie rules are the big sports here in Australia,” Ferguson said. “Their surface doesn’t need the billiard table level we need for our international football.

FIFA’s senior pitch management manager Alan Ferguson.Credit: Harold Cunningham/FIFA

“But the guys at Stadium Australia have one of the best can-do attitudes I’ve seen at a tournament.

“Within an hour of everyone coming off the surface after Origin, those guys were washing out the rugby league lines and were putting in the football lines. They did a special arrangement with the rugby league people not to go so strong on the paint for the logos.

“We knew the turf would come back around, and there were just some repairs for the minor areas for the movement of the stage.”

FIFA’s preference is for their pitches to be a combination of natural and artificial grass, which involves a stitched fibre being sewn into surfaces, such as the Sydney Football Stadium. The process can take hours.

Their guidelines are also so precise they request the grass be cut differently to traditional Australian methods, and have held workshops with local ground staff for more than a year before the tournament.

Ground staff have used pedestrian mowers weighing almost 380 kilograms to ensure the patterned lines – 10 in each half – are prepared to perfection, which helps with VAR and other technology. Each curator walks an average of eight kilometres mowing the stadium turf on match day.

“My background is from professional golf and I come from St Andrews in Scotland,” Ferguson said. “We always cut by hand. Any greenkeeper or groundsman will tell you the better quality cut will come from a pedestrian mower.

“I know the guys down here have had a culture of using ride-on machines. That’s fine to a point. But when you’re cutting in a pattern like we are for the FIFA tournaments, the wheels have to run in the same track.

“It’s like taking an iron over a creased shirt. You want your shirt looking its best before your biggest interview, and I want my pitch to look its best as well.

“Using the hybrid technology and embracing the pedestrian mowers, adopting some of these cultural practices we’ve introduced, this is a fantastic opportunity for that legacy to carry on.”

The 40 pedestrian mowers, valued at almost $800,000, will be left at the 10 tournament venues as a legacy item after the World Cup.

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