The 2026 FIFA World Cup is in full swing. There have already been 44 matches played as of Tuesday morning, and there are plenty more still to go even before we get to the knockout round. The festivities won’t end until July 19, so if you haven’t been watching, there’s still plenty of time to get in on the action, including by reading, watching and listening to all of our coverage at CBS Sports.
If you have been watching, though, one thing you might have noticed is that the matches are being played on beautiful fields made of natural grass. That includes the fields at numerous NFL stadiums. And San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle has taken notice.
Kittle sees the apparent willingness to switch out the turf for natural grass during the World Cup and wonders why football players don’t get the same treatment as fútbol players.
“If you can put grass in MetLife and in SoFi, I think you could do that year-round if you really gave a shit,” Kittle said during an appearance on Pardon My Take, per 49ersWebZone. “I mean, that’s my opinion. I think, if you polled every single player, I would say probably 90% would [say] they would prefer a grass field. And I’d say 10% would say they don’t care.
“But 90% of guys, they prefer to play on grass. And so, it’s just like, well, you just show that you can do it, so then, why don’t we do it? Because that’s what the players want to do.”
Grass vs. turf has been a subject of heated debate for some time now, with MetLife Stadium (which is being referred to as New York/New Jersey Stadium by FIFA) coming under particular scrutiny because several players have sustained serious injuries on that playing surface — even after the team swapped out the surface for a different type of turf in 2023 — including New York Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers, who tore his ACL on that field last year. As our Tyler Sullivan noted at the time, “grass has been the preferred playing surface for players, but has proved to be a point of contention for stadium operators as it is not as durable as turf and doesn’t hold up well during non-NFL events such as concerts.”
Kittle, though, seems to think the real factor behind the decision not to use grass instead of turf is a different kind of green substance: money. Grass is more expensive to maintain due to those aforementioned factors, and Kittle thinks the owners don’t want to spend the additional cash.
“So, why not just spend a couple extra million dollars, which we know they all have, to just grass all the fields? It doesn’t seem that difficult,” he said.
Kittle himself suffered a major injury last season, tearing his Achilles during a home game against the division rival Seattle Seahawks. The 49ers play on a grass surface at Levi’s Stadium so he doesn’t have personal experience with the turf issue, but as long as certain players continue getting injured in specific stadiums, this is going to be a point of contention for the foreseeable future.
