Lionel Messi May Get All Of MLS To Eliminate Artificial Grass And Hopefully The NFL Is Paying Attention
For years NFL players have been asking, begging, pleading with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and team owners to get rid of artificial grass.
Their reasons are well founded, from legitimate injury concerns to this past year's Super Bowl being a complete crap show because the geniuses decided to use a new type of laboratory grown hybrid grass. The result? Players slipping and sliding all over the place, perhaps even contributing to Eagles cornerback James Bradberry's holding penalty that led to the team losing to the Chiefs.
If only the NFL Players Association had Lionel Messi on its side.
MESSI HAS DOMINATED ON NATURAL GRASS
The 36-year-old Messi, who is arguably one of the greatest soccer players ever, made international headlines after he agreed to take his World Cup talents to America and Major League Soccer with his recent signing to Inter Miami.
One of the perks of being one of the greatest soccer players of all time is that you have some clout about the way things are done.
A major selling point for Lionel Messi signing to Inter Miami was not only that they could offer him a $50-60 million contract per year, but also that they play on natural grass which Messi has done throughout the majority of his playing career. Needless to say, his 807 career goals show that natural grass is clearly his preference as he looks forward to playing at Miami's DVR PNK Stadium - which is all natural.
Currently, 5 out of the 29 MLS teams still use artificial turf, but that may be changing thanks to Messi.
Lionel Messi will play on natural grass this season for Inter Miami of the MLS (Photo by Juan I. Roncoroni - Pool/Getty Images)
In a recent interview with The Athletic, MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that he believes all MLS teams will eventually transition to natural grass - even if it's placed on top of the artificial surfaces.
"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," Garber told the outlet.
ROGER GOODELL WOULD NEVER
Commissioner Garber is already receiving praise from both players and fans across the league. They applaud him for at least recognizing their safety concerns and the overwhelming preference to play on real grass. Garber's take is the complete opposite of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.
Despite years of complaints from the NFLPA, the NFL has refused to address the turf issue. In fact, they've done the complete opposite and have double downed with studies showing that they don't believe there is a significant increase injuries between the two different playing fields. (Interestingly, the NFLPA has their own studies that show there is a difference.)
Last year the NFLPA even released a statement saying that the “NFL PR machine into overdrive to spin a more favorable narrative to what the union and players know is a problem.”
Although Roger Goodell doesn't have the sole authority to force individual teams to change from turf to natural grass, neither does Garber - but at least he was willing to listen to the people that are actually playing on the field unlike the NFL and the NFL owners.