Ever since the construction of the new Wembley Stadium reached completion in 2007, the pitch has been severely criticised for its quality and how often it has been needed to be relaid. The facts don't look pretty for the new home of the English national football team, especially after being way over budget, with the actual cost of the stadium amounting to £798 million. Couple this with the length of time it took to finish the project, over seven years, critics and the public were already skeptical about how worthwhile the new arena would be.
After being nearly a year behind schedule, Wembley Stadium made its debut as host of the 2007 FA Cup final. Since then it was been relaid ten times, most recently in March 2010, less than three years after it was first opened. With ten times seeming an extraordinary amount of times to relay a pitch in this sort of timespan, and an 11th time is in the pipeline after talks last week, there is clearly something fundamental wrong with the state of the turf and its longevity.
One of the main reasons as to why this pitch is in such poor shape and has been needed to be relaid so often is that Wembley is not just host to football games, but also to other events, some of which can be described as "unfriendly" to grass. These occasions are held as a result of the extortionate cost of the arena, and so are seen as ways of recouping the money spent on the stadium to ensure it was not a financial loss. Some of these events include concerts and also high profile games for other sports, such as rugby union, American football and even motorsport.
All these have taken their toll on the grass, and it has been reported that the fortunes of the pitch will not be changing anytime soon, with the turf needing to be replaced approximately seven times a year right up to 2023. With the impending future of the stadium meaning it will still remain a multi-purpose one for the next thirteen years at least, will there ever be a solution for the poor state of the turf?
Each time the pitch needs to be relaid it costs £90,000, so this can only slow down the process of recouping the huge cost of the stadium. However, some people have argued that Wembley can be a multi-purpose stadium and retain a high quality pitch, with the Millenium Stadium being a good example. This Welsh arena, along with the Parken Stadium in Denmark, have managed to hold numerous events while never encountering the huge issues that Wembley have with their pitches, so this proves that the problem at the London venue is very much an individual one.
Wembley's high stands and roof have been blamed for the pitch not recieving enough sunlight and wind so it can become the same quality as the arenas just mentioned, but with careful planning and preparation this could easily be solved say many critics. There is also the danger of athletes suffering injuries, as it was reported during the recent Portsmouth versus Tottenham Hotspur semi final that players lost their footing as the grass cut up beneath their feet. Clearly a bad pitch does not just reduce the quality of a sport but also makes it more of a danger to whoever plays on the surface.
So what does the management of Wembley Stadium have to do to ensure that the pitch returns to the quality of the old Wembley, where it was envied all around the world? The extra sporting and musical events are obviously having a huge effect on the state of the turf, with the Superbowl in 2007 having a significant impact, as the grass hadn't recovered in time for the football match between England and Croatia a month later. As the future of the arena has already been decided as a multi-purpose venue, it is apparent that there will need to be a better team of groundsmen and experts to tackle and overcome the constant issues that face the pitch today.
However, ask any top footballer, and they will still tell you that one of their dreams will be to play at Wembley, no matter how critical people are of the pitch. Unless the turf improves, the question has to be asked, how long can the Wembley Stadium's reputation go untarnished before the state of the pitch overshadows the home of English football?
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