FIFA’s Global Football Development Chief, Arsène Wenger, has promised better pitches for the 2026 World Cup tournament. He has acknowledged that the quality of pitches used for the Club World Cup matches was not good enough.

Most of the venues used for the event, as well as to be used for the 2026 World Cup event, were fitted with synthetic turf pitches prior to the tournament. A programme to develop natural turf surfaces to temporarily replace the synthetic turf during the FIFA tournaments has been in progress since 2023. The results are currently being tested during the Club World Cup matches.

Players and coaches have complained about the pitches being very dry. Therefore, the maintenance crews sprinkled the surface with water during cooling breaks or at halftime

“I’ve been personally on the pitch at Orlando,” former Arsenal manager Wenger said, after an inspection of the field on Saturday. “It’s not at the level that the European clubs are used to because it’s not perfect, but that will be rectified for the World Cup next year.”

Wenger knows what expectations European clubs have. He was coach at Arsenal at the same time groundsman Paul Burgess was employed. Burgess is widely credited for introducing professionalism in field management in the English Premier League before moving to Real Madrid, where he repeated this feat.

Last week, Luis Enrique, coach of Paris St Germain, complained about the ball behaviour on the surface.

“The ball bounces like a rabbit,” he said after his team’s game against Atlético Madrid.

“FIFA really needs to take this seriously. Not just the stadium fields but also the training pitches. If we’re calling this the best club tournament in the world, it should have world‑class facilities. I can’t imagine an NBA game played on a court full of holes.”