Snow damage forces new Allianz Arena pitch laying

Due to all the recent heavy snowfalls and interminable winter in Munich, FC Bayern are having to replace their pitch for the World Cup because of it's poor state of repair.

This adds to problems already discovered at other World Cup venues such as Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern as outlined here.

They wanna whack a shitload of sand on the pitch is what they wanna do. Thats how we sort things out at Stamford Bridge.

Hang on, I thought they were always gonna have to relay the grass before the WM, its not FIFA standard.

It didn't stop Barcelona playing there though did it Don ?

They should just pave it and put down Astroturf like we did back in the States all through the '70s

Can you get FIFA standard grass in Obi?

When I went on the conducted tour last October,

we were told that ALL the WM pitches were to have new grass from a Dutch company chosen by FIFA.

Which is why the USA were a major footballing ("soccer") force in the 70s!

Obviously I'm not talking about their "imports" (Pele, Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Cruyff, Neeskens, Eusebio, Best, ...). So to be fair there must have been something good going on, although I expect it was mainly the $$$!

Grass from A Dutch company. Fantastic. One of the best countries for decent grass in Europe.

well, the dutch are specialists in growing hybrid grass, so why not? in all seriousness, there is a gap in the market here (which i'm sure the dutch or some other grass grower is working on), for hybrid grass suitable for these new stadia. they suffer primarily from a lack of light and air movement. so a tough, shade and mildew tolerant grass is what is needed.

alternatively, learn from the dutch indoor hydroponic 'gardens' and your football pitch would come up smelling like, well, weed!!

There's an Observer article about the Dutch grass here. Seems to be only 7 stadiums.

Gratuitous Allianz Arena shot...