Canada 1- China 0: Women's World Cup underway

[shenmue]

Story here

Yipee!

[SunSeeker]

1. Ridiculous that they were forced to play on artificial turf.

Maybe if those scumbags at FIFA hadn't pocketed all those millions, they could have grown real grass on those fields with that money.

[Ron Obvious]

2. Absolutely

It's a different sport on turf. The ball bounces a lot more and you can't really do a sliding tackle without setting your leg on fire.

Turf must die.

[SunSeeker]

3. Not only that, but the nibs in the turf are toxic ground up tire bits.

They've been associated with cancer, especially for goalies who dive into it constantly.

But for goalkeepers, whose bodies are in constant contact with the turf, it can be far worse. In practices and games, they make hundreds of dives, and each plunge sends a black cloud of tire pellets into the air. The granules get into their cuts and scrapes, and into their mouths. Griffin wondered if those crumbs - which have been known to contain carcinogens and chemicals - were making players sick.

"I've coached for 26, 27 years," she said. "My first 15 years, I never heard anything about this. All of a sudden it seems to be a stream of kids."

Since then, Griffin has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players -- 34 of them goalies - who have been diagnosed with cancer. At least a dozen played in Washington, but the geographic spread is nationwide. Blood cancers like lymphoma and leukemia dominate the list.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/how-safe-artificial-turf-your-child-plays-n220166

[Ron Obvious]

4. I didn't know that!

Is that astroturf or does it apply to the newer artificial pitches as well? I've heard they were supposedly much better and more like the real thing, but I'm sceptical.

[SunSeeker]

5. Yes, AstroTurf has it. Pretty much all team sport turfs use those tire nibs.

The artificial turf used for home lawns or putting greens don't have it; sand/pulverized gravel is used to stand up the fake grass blades in that turf. But you can't play on that type of turf, it would be like playing on cement. Sports turfs fill the fake grass blades with rubber nibs. https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/synthetic_turf/crumb-rubber_infilled/fact_sheet.htm

Rubber nibs from recycled tires are way cheaper that virgin rubber, so that is why it's used. My son has been playing club soccer for 5 years now, and every artificial turf field he has played on has those nibs to cushion falls and make the fake grass blades stand up. Fortunately, he is a midfielder, so he doesn't get as much of it on him as goalkeepers, but it is always in his shoes and socks.

Pisses me off. They should make Sepp Blatter eat a plate of that shit. Fucker.

My son recently played a tournament in Barcelona, Spain, and some of the games were on artificial turf. I noticed that artificial turf fields there had these huge fire hose-type sprinklers on each corner that they turned on to wet down the field before the games. I am not sure if they do this to keep the nibs down or clean or cool (artificial turf gets way hotter than real grass) but I have never seen that done here in California for turf fields. None of the turf fields here have those sprinklers.

I know some schools are trying out less toxic nibs made by Nike from recycled sneakers ("Nike Grind&quot , but it's very expensive--$40,000 more per field. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/high-school-changes-plans-artificial-turf-field-n232686 And it is still rubber, so whether it is truly nontoxic is unclear.

It makes way more sense to just plant real grass sports fields at this point, even in drought country like California.