FA calls for more artificial pitches in England
There should be a strong drive towards installing more artificial football pitches across England, a spokesperson for the Football Association (FA) has said.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire programme, Peter Ackerby, the FA's senior national game development manager, said many pitches run by local councils were in an "abhorrent" state and that the future of the game at grassroots level was under threat unless there is a move from grass to artificial pitches.
According to Sport England statistics, grassroots participation levels within football have been falling over the past decade. The latest Active People Survey, published last month (January 2014), showed that football suffered the steepest fall (90,000) of all sports in the number of people playing the sport regularly.
"There has to be a stronger push for artificial pitches," Ackerley said. "Together with the Football Foundation and Premier League we have so far done around 600 and many more are needed."
"We also need to have a look at what else we can do with grass pitches. As local councils are under financial pressure, discretionary services such as providing pitches may be cut to allow essential services being maintained.
"We have had good experiences in areas where the ownership and maintenance of the pitches have been transferred from cash-strapped councils to local FAs and clubs."
An average grass pitch can sustain around five hours of football each week, while the FA estimates that each artificial pitch can be used by up to 60 teams for training and matches each week.
Chris Trickey, CEO of Sports and Play Construction Association (SAPCA), which represents many artificial pitch suppliers, said: "With the poor state of some natural turf pitches, particularly where there are inadequate resources to maintain them to an acceptable standard, it is not surprising that synthetic surfaces are seen by many - including The FA - as offering an excellent solution.
"Perhaps there will always be a debate between the relative merits of synthetic and natural turf surfaces for top professional football, but the high usage available from synthetic pitches will inevitably be a very significant factor at facilities at the grassroots end of the sport."
Geoff Webb, the CEO of the Institute of Groundsmanship, however, said that simply replacing grass pitches with artificial surfaces was not a panacea.
"There is a wider issue that needs to be addressed," Webb said. "In many cases the only reason pitches are failing is due to the lack of prioritisation and understanding of basic sports turf management principles, which is often seen as an unnecessary expense and for too long has gone under the radar.
"The cost to install an artificial pitch is in the order of £500,000. Yet The FA states that there are 33,000 football pitches in England alone. If you take the fact that the FA are committed to installing 1,500 new artificial pitches in the next two years, that's an incredible financial commitment to what equates to less than 5 per cent of the total football playing population. What happens to the other 95 per cent? The economics do not stack up."
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