Grass Pitches Under Scrutiny at the Euros: Are There Natural Alternatives?

Grass Pitches Under Scrutiny at the Euros: Are There Natural Alternatives?

Tens of thousands of tonnes of rubber crumbs and artificial grass from pitches end up in the sea, research shows. Could natural alternatives help to stop the pollution?

When Queens Park Rangers (QPR) became the first professional English club to install a synthetic pitch at their Loftus Road ground in 1981, it raised eyebrows. Made of a concrete base with a nylon carpet-like fabric layer and sand spread over the top, the new pitch caused the ball to move faster and bounce further than their opponents were used to. Some commented that QPR were now "fantastic on plastic," as the ball zipped between players. But not everyone was convinced.

One football manager recalled seeing goal kicks bounce once on the rock-hard surface and sail over the opposition's crossbar out of play. The all-weather surface was hard-wearing in more ways than one – it would leave players with horrible cuts and grazes. QPR's pitch was later removed after England's Football Association banned plastic pitches in 1988 due to higher rates of injuries and inconsistent playability. In the US, athletes including NFL players have also pushed for changing synthetic field surfaces to natural grass to prevent injuries.

However, natural pitches, made with carefully selected, hard-wearing grasses, can also be problematic: they need to be replaced frequently, consume a lot of water, and can turn into treacherous, muddy traps for the players. Pundits covering the Euro 2024 matches have criticized the grass pitch in Frankfurt's Waldstadion, which replaced a synthetic-natural hybrid pitch, calling it "a mess" and emphasizing that slipping and sliding on cut-up turf can impact performance as players worry about getting injured. Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann said the turf was a "catastrophe" and that players "risked serious injury."

Today, most top-tier football pitches are a hybrid – essentially a synthetic mat through which real grass can grow. These pitches feel like natural grass – the ball bounces consistently, they are softer underfoot and can be resown with new grass each year. Importantly, they are also hard-wearing, much better at draining, and can recover quickly, so can be used for things other than football. As the clubs with the biggest stadiums look for alternative ways to make money, in the summer months football grounds are turned into music venues, with acts like Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Pink, and Taylor Swift playing in front of tens of thousands of fans across the UK in recent years.

In total, only about 3-5% of the playing surface of these top-tier pitches is synthetic. Importantly, they don't use rubber crumbs: tiny, polluting particles that can end up in the ocean. But, these hybrid pitches cost millions of pounds to install and are only affordable to the highest-earning professional sides. For ordinary community pitches, is there a way to make hard-wearing, affordable surfaces, without returning to the 80s and 90s knee-grazers?

Plastic in the Sea

Modern "third generation" (or 3G) artificial pitches are made with a shock-absorbing base layer of rubber which is covered in a matting of 4-6.5cm (1.6-2.4in) long polypropylene or polyethylene fibers. This is then coated with a layer of sand and then an "infill" layer of small rubber pellets called crumbs. This rubber crumb is typically made from recycled car tires in the EU.