Ever since the FIFA World Cup came to America, one of the biggest talking points hasn’t even been about soccer, but the fields they played on.

Ever since the World Cup ended, NFL players across the league have been calling for their owners to replace their artificial turf fields with natural grass fields. They were able to do it for the World Cup, so why not do it during the season for the players that make them money?

Studies show that players are 28 percent more likely to suffer lower-body non-contact injuries on artificial turf than they are on natural grass. That number rises to 32 percent for knee injuries and 69 percent for foot/ankle injuries specifically.

The players have the right to be outraged, because they’re the ones making their owners millions and millions of dollars, and yet they seem to be more concerned about a soccer game than their own players.

FIFA Convinced Multiple Stadiums to Replace Turf With Natural Grass

It’s well known that turf fields are more expensive to install, but far cheaper to maintain than natural grass fields. Plus, for teams that play in a dome, it’s hard to grow natural grass indoors. But recently, teams such as the Arizona Cardinals and Las Vegas Raiders have installed mechanisms that allow the field to roll outside on non-game days, allowing them to play on natural grass fields despite playing in a dome.

We all know all 32 NFL teams can have a natural grass field, but instead, only 15 of them do. Despite being billion-dollar organizations, some NFL teams are just cheap. Despite an outcry from players, with over 90 percent of them saying they prefer natural grass to turf, owners have refused to make a change. Except for when the World Cup came to town.

When the United States was announced as the host country for the 2026 World Cup, they had to make some changes. FIFA requires all World Cup games to be played on high-quality natural grass fields, but many of the stadiums that were set to host games were NFL venues that had artificial turf fields, such as MetLife Stadium, SoFi Stadium, AT&T Stadium, and many others.

In order to accommodate the World Cup, all of these stadiums found a way to replace their turf fields with natural grass fields, but as soon as the World Cup ended, they went back to their fake grass fields.

As you can imagine, this has caused an uproar with their players. Why are they willing to invest in a natural grass field for a few soccer games, but not for their players who make them all their money?

Turf is Significantly Less Expensive Than Grass

The main reason owners refuse to switch from turf to natural grass isn’t that it’s harder to grow or maintain: it’s because it costs significantly more money.

Installing artificial turf has a steep up-front cost, but after a few years, you save so much money on maintenance that it pays for itself. With a natural grass field, you have to water it every day and pay a whole crew just to maintain the grass. With turf, yes, there are maintenance costs, but it’s not nearly as much as with grass.

On top of that, if you have a natural grass field, it’s much harder to hold other events in the stadium. Say you want to have a concert and have to plop a big stage on the field. With turf, it’ll be pretty much the same after the concert. With grass, you’ll have to wait weeks to get it back to playing condition.

All owners care about is money, and having a turf field not only saves them money in maintenance, but it also makes them money by allowing them to hold other events in their stadium more often. That’s why so many refuse to change their playing surface even though their players are begging for it.

FIFA Made Stephen Jones a Liar

Back in 2023, Dallas Cowboys Executive Vice President of Player Personnel and Co-Owner Stephen Jones made a statement saying he doesn’t believe it would be possible for the Cowboys to have a quality natural grass field in their stadium.

“We don’t think we can have a quality natural grass in our stadium,” Jones said.

By 2026, he was proven wrong. The Cowboys replaced their artificial turf with natural grass for the World Cup. The field held up well through nine games at AT&T Stadium over a near-month span.

It’s clear now that it’s possible for these indoor teams to have natural grass fields. The fact of the matter is, they just don’t want to pay for them.

When an owner has invested hundreds of millions into players and a family worth over $10 billion, one might expect a willingness to invest more in field safety, but I guess you don’t get to be worth billions of dollars by “unnecessarily” spending money.