SportsField Management magazine’ s exclusive interview with FIFA Senior Pitch Management Manager Alan Ferguson
INTERNATIONAL SOCCER
SportsField Management magazine’ s exclusive interview with FIFA Senior Pitch Management Manager Alan Ferguson
Photo by Mark Skalny
FIFA Senior Pitch Management Manager Alan Ferguson joined SportsField Management magazine Editor John Kmitta at SFMA Conference earlier this year to discuss World Cup 26. As the World Cup kicks off this month, we share excerpts from that interview, which originally appeared on the SportsField Management Podcast.
SportsField Management( SFM): You ' ve been at the forefront with FIFA at the SFMA Conference for several years. Why has it been important for you and for FIFA to be involved with SFMA, the conference, and to share your messaging with its members?
Alan Ferguson: From the moment that the announcement was formalized that the World Cup would be coming as a triple host to the USA, Mexico and Canada, we were coming from the smallest tournament footprint in Qatar to the biggest edition with the expansion from 32 participating nations to 48. One of the first things that struck me was how are we going to do this? It ' s just a vast, vast tournament footprint. We were never going to be able to do it as we were structured in Qatar. But I knew through previous associations with people here in the U. S. and with the SFMA that ' s one way forward. I ' m a member of the GMA in the UK, so we have similarities and synergies there. I thought this was probably the most important connection we had to make early on, beyond the research facility that we did with the [ University of Tennessee and Michigan State University ].
I can ' t thank the SFMA enough for opening their doors, allowing us not just one time to open the general session, but three consecutive times. I ' m not sure too many people have been afforded that privilege, but we very much see it as a privilege. It ' s been an honor to see 1,500 to 2,000 people sat in front of you from across the industry. As I alluded to in the general session, there ' s so many moving parts. I ' m not ashamed to put my hand up and say maybe I underestimated the importance of the roles of some of these moving parts, particularly around the sod farmers. So it ' s been really useful for that; there ' s been a coming together, and a fantastic collaboration.
You have a number of global experts in the states, and lot of them are members of SFMA. So it ' s been absolutely invaluable. I can say without fear of contradiction that I wouldn ' t be sitting here in January 2026 feeling pretty good about myself and feeling pretty good about where we are—
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