Rotten Russian pitches only good for goats
Reuters - Friday 27 April 2012, 10:46
Russian Premier League pitches are a
disgrace and, in at least one case, more suitable for chickens
and goats than professional football, the world players' union
FIFPro said in a report on Friday.
Russia has been awarded the 2018 World Cup and football in
the country is booming, yet FIFPro said it had heard from
players that pitches had been overlooked.
"The quality of the pitches in Russia is disgraceful,"
former Torpedo Moscow player Vladimir Leonchenko, a member of
the union's technical committee, was quoted as saying by FIFPro.
"There is enough money. We are talking here about clubs with
budgets of 70-80 million euros. But there is simply no
willingness and also no knowledge to invest in the pitches. This
is very bad for the image of Russian football."
Leonchenko said that from the beginning of March, matches in
Russia should be played only in the south of the country and on
the artificial surface in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
"Not only are the other pitches at the start of March in an
appalling condition, but also, by playing on them in that
period, you destroy the pitches for the rest of the season," he
said.
Cameroon forward Samuel Eto'o, who plays for Anzhi
Makhachkala, was quoted by FIFPro as saying that the pitches had
turned out to be a far bigger problem for him than the freezing
cold, which he had expected to be his main concern.
"When I was considering the possibility to go to Russia, I
was told that the main problem is the cold. But after a while in
Russia I understood that the main problem of Russian football is
the condition of the pitches," said the former Barcelona and
Inter Milan forward.
"The present pitches do not allow us to play as we can. This
is not football, this is something else."
He was backed by his Anzhi team mate Vladimir Gabulov.
"The Russian pitches are worse than those on which Eto'o
played in his childhood in Africa," he said.
FIFPro also carried the views of other Russian Premier
League players about pitches they had played on recently.
The most outspoken was Roman Shirokov of Zenit St
Petersburg.
"How can you play in such a garden?" he said, referring to
an unidentified Premier League pitch.
"If the groundsman has chickens and goats let him use it.
You just cannot play football here."