The U.S. women’s soccer team’s refusal to play Sunday’s exhibition match at Aloha Stadium has kick-started a controversy about safety concerns that now involves legal issues.
The Hawaii attorney general’s office is reviewing a letter accusing stadium officials of defaulting on a promise to provide a safe and fit playing field for a match between the U.S. team and Trinidad and Tobago. The letter from the U.S. Soccer Federation cited poor conditions, including an uneven surface and open seams, for the match’s cancellation.
Aloha Stadium officials could not be reached for comment.
But Saint Louis School head coach Cal Lee, whose football team played most of its games at the stadium, defended the UBU Sports Speed artificial surface that was installed in 2011.
“We’ve had high school games, college games, pro games and every game you can think of, and now, all of a sudden, it’s unsafe?” Lee said. “What field is perfect? You can get hurt on a perfect field. You can trip, stumble, all those things, and you’re going to say it’s the field? It’s a safe place to play. Period.”
On the Players’ Tribune website, the soccer team wrote that there “were sharp rocks ingrained all over the field” during Saturday’s abbreviated practice.
“Was there a meteor shower I didn’t know about?” said receiver Quinton Pedroza, who completed his University of Hawaii football career in November. “There’s nothing wrong with the turf. If it were bad, we would have noticed.”
Aloha Stadium opened in 1975 as a facility that switched between football and baseball configurations. The stadium, which always had an artificial surface, also has a rich soccer history. Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best and People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” David Beckham, have played at the stadium. Team Hawaii was an NASL franchise in 1977. The Hawaii Tsunami, a semipro team, used the stadium as one of its venues in the 1990s. Several years ago the L.A. Galaxy played against D.C. United, a team featuring then-teen sensation Freddy Adu.
But despite enthusiastic crowds, the playing surface has never been ideal for soccer. Brian Ching, the first Hawaii-raised resident to play for the U.S. national team, recalled matches as a Kamehameha Schools player.
“It used to be that old sandpaper turf on top of concrete,” Ching said.
But with help from the NFL, which sponsors the Pro Bowl, FieldTurf was installed in 2003. In 2008 Ching played on a second — and improved — installation of FieldTurf at Aloha Stadium.
“The field was in good shape; it was very even,” said Rainbow Wahine soccer coach Michele Nagamine, who had a field pass for that match.
But Nagamine said the conditions were vastly different last weekend. She said the field appeared to be lumpy, “like there’s a big anaconda sleeping under the turf.” She said there also was white “shell-like stuff” embedded, and open seams, especially in the 18-yard box fronting the goal, “where the most traffic occurs.” The field was extended to meet soccer’s specifications.
“When you walked out there for Saturday’s practice, you could tell the turf was jacked up, like it was not ideal for soccer,” Nagamine said. “You didn’t need a doctorate to figure out that with all that running — they’re running 9 miles a game — what made them think that an uneven turf was going to be OK?”
The match was part of a greater argument about why the U.S. women’s team, unlike the men, is assigned to play matches on artificial turf. The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup was played on artificial surfaces. Eight of the 10 so-called “victory tour” matches also were scheduled for nongrass fields.
“I think this is a bigger issue with the women’s national team in their fight for equality on other levels,” Ching said, “and I think Hawaii got caught in the cross hairs of that, unfortunately.”
Nagamine said, “You can’t really blame Aloha Stadium. We’re kind of in that ‘it is what it is.’ Everybody knows we need a new stadium. We’ve been talking about it for 10 years now. You can’t just necessarily blame the stadium. Somebody inspected it on Thursday and said it was OK. The only thing I fault the stadium is they should have been thinking about it from a soccer perspective. They should have known who their user was. They probably could have trouble-shot it if they knew that the product was subpar.”
