FIFA UPDATE


G


ermany led the recovery back into competitive football with the reintroduction of the Bundesliga on 15th May 2020, with the English Premier


League also aiming to finish the season (at the time of writing). In other areas of Europe, countries such as Holland and France have decided not to resume.


Whilst trying to work on a country by country basis is difficult enough, at FIFA, they are trying to reschedule four tournaments on three different continents, each in their own phase of the pandemic with various restrictions in place. As has been established in previous articles, planning these tournaments takes a


lot of visiting, checking and double-checking to ensure pitches will be ready for a World Cup at any age group. Ordinarily, interviews for these articles would take place on the phone during a spare hour in an airport between these visits, but today - as has been the case for eight weeks at the time of writing - the base of operations for Senior Pitch Management Manager, Alan Ferguson, is the Suffolk countryside.


For Alan, the initial conversations over Microsoft Teams and Zoom were to discuss how preparation for four tournaments, plus the men’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar, could go ahead on the original dates before the age group tournaments were all rightly postponed and moved back a year.


The new dates for these tournaments now mean that the Women’s U-20 World Cup in Panama and Costa Rica will take place in January and February 2021, the Women’s U- 17 World Cup in India in February and March 2021, the Men’s U-20 World Cup in Indonesia in May and June 2021, along with the Men’s U-17 tournament in Autumn 2021. As well as these competitions, the Olympic Football Tournament in Tokyo will also be under FIFA’s guidance, meaning the pitch team will deliver six tournaments back to back for the first time. “Like everyone else in the world I, or FIFA, had no idea about what was going to happen and how it was going to affect everything,” Alan began. “A week before


PC June/July 2020


53


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156