Players at this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, trying to settle a lawsuit against FIFA, will play on artificial turf as long as the final matches are on natural grass, their lawyer said on Monday.
The proposal is the latest twist in a rolling dispute that picked up steam in August last year when players said a proposal to play the June 6 to July 5 tournament in Canada on artificial turf was discriminatory and violated human rights.
“The battle over the use of plastic pitches at the women’s World Cup can easily and quickly come to a peaceful resolution,” attorney Hampton Dellinger said in a statement. “All FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association need to do is accept the players’ feasible, affordable and more than fair deal.”
The players, who filed a lawsuit against soccer’s governing body and the Canadian Soccer Association last year, are now proposing playing all but the semi-final, third-place playoff and final matches on artificial turf.
The proposal lays out how top quality grass fields could be prepared for and installed in each of the three stadiums hosting the tournament’s final two rounds.
According to the proposal, the plan is modeled on systems used successfully for previous FIFA men’s and women’s World Cups and is approved by leading world experts on sports grass.
“The players continue to believe a women’s World Cup should not be singled out for field conditions men’s World Cups have never been subjected to, but this settlement offer represents a good-faith attempt at compromise,” the proposal said.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
EMPTY STANDS: Maccabi fans were banned from attending by police, who cited violence and hate crimes when the team played Ajax in Amsterdam last season Aston Villa beat Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv 2-0 on Thursday in a Europa League game played amid heightened security measures, with more than 700 police officers deployed to deal with possible protests. Morgan Rogers put through Ian Maatsen in first-half stoppage time for the defender to score from a tight angle and Villa doubled the lead on the hour with Donyell Malen hitting the bottom corner from the penalty spot. It was Villa’s third win from games in the competition. The game at Villa Park had become the center of a political debate after Maccabi fans were banned from attending, as
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS