INTERNATIONAL SOCCER having come out of the Club World Cup. It was a tournament in its own right, but it was a chance for us to stick our toe in the water. To see so many SFMA members who helped deliver Club World Cup and who will also deliver World Cup, and additional people who will come into those roles as well, is heartening and comforting in equal measure for me as FIFA senior pitch manager to know that we ' ve got so many people all on the same page, all wanting the same objective to make this the biggest and best World Cup ever.
SFM: We ' ve documented the efforts of FIFA, the University of Tennessee, Michigan State, and the years of research and testing that went into preparing for this to ensure a consistent, natural, safe playing surface. What are you most proud of with this multi-year effort, and what do you feel will be the lasting impact of World Cup 26 on the sports field management industry?
Photo by John Kmitta
Ferguson: I think there are two or three things readily spring to mind. One of the biggest challenges with regards to the stadium selection for the tournament was that eight of the buildings weren ' t typically soccer venues. They are used to host NFL, and the configuration of their bowls was narrower than what we are typically used to picking up for an international FIFA tournament. So just seeing how these venues have adapted to be able to take in the FIFA regulation size field; but then to see how they typically play on synthetic on a concrete floor. There ' s not a traditional rootzone as we would want there. So the research teams came up with the shallow pitch profile. To see that rolled out in places like Dallas AT & T for the first time was just excitement off the scale for us.
Not everything goes to plan the first time out, and many times the researchers have to go back to the drawing board. They never quit, and I think it ' s a huge credit to the undergrads at both universities that they stuck to the tasks that we gave them. I remember going to my people in FIFA asking for the initial $ 3 million. I never thought I would get it, I ' m not going to lie, because they didn ' t know why I wanted $ 3 million to research grass. Now they get it. When we had FIFA President Infantino at Tennessee last February, he hit me with a number of questions and things that he wanted to know ahead of a press conference that he was doing at UT. He was only supposed to be there a couple of hours, but four-and-a-half hours later, he was blown away and acknowledged genuinely how amazing it was.
So that was a big one for me, knowing that we ' re going to leave a legacy. And I ' ve been keen not only to have UT and MSU for 2026, but that they stay our global research center for the 2030 tournament, the 2034 men ' s tournament, and also the 27 women ' s tournament in Brazil, and 31 in the U. S., Mexico, Jamaica and Costa Rica. So it doesn ' t stop here. I think that would be tragic. I think for the investment and money, time and effort, if we were to cut loose and go after the final whistle in July, I think that would be tragic not only for the industry, but for the football whole family as a whole, because not many lead bodies have invested in the science.
I knew we needed research. We had a small research center that was set up in Qatar for 2022, but it was much smaller scale because we were in one place— 74 miles from north to south, and you could see all 8 stadiums and all 32 training sites. Here is a different ballgame altogether. The model worked, and was a good idea, but it needed to be upscaled. The turf research universities here in the U. S. are widely, worldly renowned as leaders in that field. I think all we wanted to do was plug in to who had the best systems of research, who was the most advanced. And these two came out on top. I knew that we were a pretty safe bet going with both of them.
I remember sitting down with John [ Sorochan ] in the East End of London when he was over doing the NFL. I had just left Wembley and started with FIFA, I ' d come through the Russian tournament, and I said to him,“ This is my vision. This is what I see. Do you think you can deliver it?” And yes, he could.
So I think there ' s a fantastic opportunity for legacy, the research being one of them. So many of the build- sportsfieldmanagementonline. com June 2026 | SportsField Management
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