The head of Russian football threatened Wednesday to close the stadiums of clubs unable to keep the pitch in good shape.
Russian Premier League football resumed earlier this month after a three-month winter break, but most matches suffered greatly due to the bad playing surfaces, which cut up quickly under foot.
It whipped up a flurry of criticism among officials concerned that Russia's swtich from a summer to a winter league could permanently stain the quality of football.
“We’ll place harsh sanctions on arenas that don’t meet our criteria. We’ll temporarily close stadiums,” Russian Football Union chief Sergei Fursenko said.
The Russian winter “is no excuse for pitches where it’s impossible to play football,” Fursenko said in comments reported by sportbox.ru.
Lokomotiv Moscow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko reportedly claimed his team’s 0-0 draw with Rubin Kazan at the weekend resembled a rugby match because of the poor pitch
But the fact that Zenit St. Petersburg presented a reasonable surface for their Champions League clash with Benfica on a natural pitch in February shows that bad weather is no excuse for a poor pitch, Fursenko said.
“Somehow the northernmost club in the Premier League, in St. Petersburg, was able to host a Champions League match at the appropriate level.”
Fursenko said that the Russian Football Union would send a commission to Kazan to inspect Rubin’s reserve stadium, where the match against Lokomotiv took place.
Earlier this season, Krylya Sovetov’s opener against CSKA Moscow was postponed because of the state of the pitch, while their ground was criticized in September after a game against Dynamo Moscow when the ball did not bounce on a waterlogged pitch.
