AS the English Premier League attracts interest from Amazon, Mark Warburton has advised Scottish football not to become isolated.
The light blues boss yesterday blasted a rule allowed Alloa to change the size of their pitch halfway through the season.
However Warburton has now gone a step further and asked for a stop to Scottish teams playing on artificial surfaces, especially at Premiership level.
Warburton thinks playing matches on artificial pitches is giving the Scottish game a bad image when it needs to work harder than ever before to stop being left behind in the slipstream of financial domination in England.
The ‘Gers gaffer also believes playing on plastic pitches often is leaving players with potential long-term injuries.
Fraser Wishart, players’ unions boss, is on Warburton’s side having called on the SPFL to stop more senior clubs putting in plastic pitches until research has been down on the damage they can do.
Warburton said: “It’s a dangerous route to have more and more artificial pitches and it comes back to the quality of the product.
“You’ve got to get investment into the Scottish market, but you are going to bring it in and the TV companies if you’re playing at certain places on certain surfaces? I’m not so sure.
“It’s part of the equation, another slice of the pie. Turn on the Premier League and look at the quality of the product.
“I watched the Leicester game the other day and the pitch was magnificent, a 30,000 sell out, great atmosphere, great television. I’m not sure you get the same with an artificial surface and a half-empty stadium.
“How do we improve the quality of the product to attract investment because it’s too easy to sit here and say, ‘That’s just the way it is.’
“We must strive to get better – look at the Premier League now from where it started. Go into any bar in Asia or North America and a game will be on.
“It continues to attempt to get better and attract more investment and there is now talk of Amazon and all these big guys getting involved.
“We have to hang on to their coat-tails somehow and get more money here in Scotland. Clubs such as Bristol City are bidding 9 and 10 million for players. The market is moving.
“I understand the financial implications for clubs in terms of rental income from artificial pitches, but maybe at the top tier, at Premiership level for example, it should be sacrosanct.
“At some stage you must separate the elite. You’ve got to put a directive in place. I don’t think you will attract investment in the game if you’re playing on inconsistent artificial surfaces. I read Tommy Wright’s comments and a lot of managers are old fashioned in terms of grass pitches.
“The are difficult to maintain and it is expensive and the ground staff have a tough job, especially with the weather we’ve had this year.
“But if you ask any supporter they will take the grass all day long.”
Rangers will play three games in eight days on artificial pitches at Alloa, Kilmarnock and Queen of the South. Twelve of the 42 SPFL clubs play on plastic.
Players are regularly left out by managers when games are played on artificial pitches and a lot of players complain of increased aches and pains after playing on them.
Wishart carried out a survey with his members on the subject and the vast majority said they wanted to avoid plastic pitches.
Warburton added: “I understand the problems with the weather, but I prefer grass. We don’t know enough about long-term impact of artificial surfaces on players’ bodies.
“We have players training every single day on artificial surfaces – where are they going to be in 10 or 15 years’ times in terms of their joints? The last time we played a game, Rob Kiernan and Danny Wilson had serious abrasions that stopped them training for two or three days.
“But it’s the long-term wear on the joints where a big question remains and that’s where PFA Scotland made a great point.
“It would be a mistake to move to more artificial surfaces. I can’t see Premier League teams down south going to artificial – or Championship.
“At Brentford, if we had really poor weather we would go to the indoor facility which is similar to the one we have here at Murray Park.
“Four or five players couldn’t train on it from long-term injuries. They wouldn’t go and train on it – especially the older players. They would refuse to train on it. They are pro players, they know their bodies. It’s their livelihood. It’s all right for us on the staff having a five-a-side on the park.
“Fraser Wishart’s comments were very good. That’s his job. He hasn’t shirked responsibility.
“He made a really good point and it was prepared really well. It made perfect sense to me – you just don’t know what the implications are of playing on artificial pitches.”
