The first major predicament in Lionel Messi’s blockbuster move stateside may be looming as MLS teams face a dilemma over the star’s reluctance to play on artificial turf.
The Argentine icon departed Europe for the first time in his club career for a new chapter in the US earlier this month, with the fanfare surrounding his long-awaited arrival having reached unprecedented levels. Not since David Beckham’s landmark move to LA Galaxy back in 2007 has a transfer so roundly captured the imaginations of the public at large.
Attracted by a different pace of life in a city where he already owns a home — away from the glaring spotlight that surrounded his tenures at both Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain — the 36-year-old rebuffed the advances of the Camp Nou giants and the riches of Saudi Arabia to sign for Inter Miami. However, a familiar problem which has been highlighted by MLS superstars of the past has reared its head once more, as Mirror Football understands that the World Cup winner is unwilling to play on artificial surfaces.
Clearly, this poses significant questions for the league and the six franchises who use turf instead of grass at their respective stadiums, with two of these in MLS’ Eastern Conference. In all, New England Revolution, Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, Charlotte FC, Vancouver Whitecaps and Atlanta United currently use surfaces other than grass.
Intriguingly, this issue may well come to a head sooner rather than later, with away trips to Atlanta and Charlotte still to come for the Floridan franchise later in the current MLS season. Boasting two of the largest stadiums in the league, the prospect of the former Barcelona hero Messi not playing in those fixtures would likely come as a major commercial blow for those franchises if interest from prospective spectators dwindles.
All tickets for away clashes against the Herons have sold out for this current campaign. However, it is possible that some more fair-weather supporters would not be as eager to part with their cash if Messi was to sit out games in the future for this reason.
So far this season, the teams in question have had the highest attendance figures out of all of MLS’ 29 teams, with both Atlanta United and Charlotte FC having previously held the record for the highest gates at a single league fixture. Both the former’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the latter’s Bank of America Stadium have posted attendance figures in excess of 70,000 in the recent past and it would not be unfeasible to predict that a capacity crowd would be expected to turn out to see Messi in action.
So far this season, the teams in question have had the highest attendance figures out of all of MLS’ 29 teams, with both Atlanta United and Charlotte FC having previously held the record for the highest gates at a single league fixture. Both the former’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium and the latter’s Bank of America Stadium have posted attendance figures in excess of 70,000 in the recent past and it would not be unfeasible to predict that a capacity crowd would be expected to turn out to see Messi in action.
This does leave these franchises in a tricky situation, with the usage of temporary surfaces to accommodate the superstar’s needs the only realistic solution while the season is ongoing. MLS commissioner Don Garber does believe this will be the best solution to the problem in the coming months but is currently leaving any decisions on this issue up the franchises, telling the Athletic : “That’s going to be the decision of every club when they do travel to those stadiums that don’t have natural grass.
“My expectations are that that’s what they will do, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to figure all of that out. MLS promotes a lot of international games and we have been able to bring natural grass into those stadiums, but we’ve never done that for a regular season game.”
Of course, Messi has played every game of his club career on grass thus far, with such surfaces having been banned by both Ligue 1 and La Liga in the past decade. Furthermore, it is worth noting that, although artificial surfaces are permitted for Champions League games under UEFA rulings, they are banned for the final.
The fact that none of the 42 grounds that host teams across the top two tiers of England’s league pyramid have surfaces other than grass is also rather telling. Pointedly, as part of an anonymous survey which was carried out by ESPN in 2020, they found that only 37 per cent of players in MLS would not factor in the surfaces a team plays on in their decision over whether to move to a club.
It is fair to suggest, therefore, that even in a league where artificial surfaces are more commonplace than in Europe’s top competitions, there is a reluctance to play on synthetic turf. it should not be overlooked that megastars before Messi including Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have spoken of their reluctance at the prospect of playing on turf as opposed to grass as well — so these concerns are not exactly new.
In the case of the former, he was unequivocal in his response to the possibility of playing on Field Turf, telling Canadian outlet the Globe and Mail : “As a professional athlete, you can’t play a game like soccer on that sort of field. What it does to your body as a soccer player, you’re in bits for three days after that. Every game, every team should have grass, without a doubt. You can’t ask any athlete to perform at a high level on the FieldTurf.”
Ultimately, Beckham did relent on these concerns, eventually addressing the debate over artificial surfaces once more in 2012 ahead of a fixture at Toronto FC’s Rogers Centre. He told CBC that, while the situation was not to his liking, he was willing to acquiesce adding: “It’s not ideal, but it’s the same for both teams. Ideally you want to play on grass, but at the end of the day, this is the situation.
Likewise, Ibrahimovic also expressed his opposition to playing on synthetic surfaces, echoing the former England captain’s sentiments that the experience could well heighten the risk of injury. After playing on turf in a game versus Portland Timbers, told ESPN : “By playing on turf, I risk to get damage. I don’t say I will get injured.
“I don’t know; I could get injured also in normal games but the consequence is everywhere, the risk is everywhere. The risk is higher on the turf and I tried to play on the turf in Portland, and I felt very bad.”
The Swedish icon added: “With all the respect for turf, for Portland and the stadium, which was a fantastic atmosphere, if I could play I would play every single second. But it’s not about that I don’t want to play, it’s about me – I don’t want to take the risk to get damaged if it’s not life or death.”
In a bid to add some balance to the debate, MLS commissioner Garber has pointed out that major stars including Thierry Henry have played on synthetic surfaces during their stints in the league. Even so, both Henry and Ibrahimovic missed games on surfaces other than grass during their time in the US, which perhaps is as good a sign as any in regards to their own diffidence towards synthetic turf.
