FIFA Got What It Came For

A WELL-KNOWN VENUE IN THE MEADOWLANDS THAT FIFA WOULD THANK YOU TO CALL “NEW YORK NEW JERSEY STADIUM” BECAUSE IT DIDN’T GET PAID BY THAT STADIUM’S CORPORATE SPONSOR — The grass told the entire story. 

If given the opportunity, FIFA would have very happily stripped every seat and beam and light fixture out of the venue that hosted Sunday’s World Cup Final and pawned it all off.

In keeping with the organization’s best practices, those prices could have been set dynamically, while also being manipulated into an artificial scarcity that didn’t remotely reflect actual market demand.

But only the grass sod that had been rolled out over the regular MetLife Stadium turf wasn’t bolted down, and so that would have to do. 

That surface was far too dry and slow for high-level soccer, according to the players who contested some of the biggest games of their lives on subpar grass.

Even from way up in the press box, you could see the ball bobbling about unprovoked and dying on its way from one player to the next.