Lee Chun-soo opens up about the importance of K League Baseball stadium grass.
On September 9, the YouTube channel “Lee Chun-soo [Lee Chun-soo]” posted a video titled “Reasons for the improvement of the K League turf.
Following Ki Sung-yong’s comments about wanting to improve the turf in the past, Lee also posted a video expressing his anger at the state of the turf in the K League.
He said, “The grass is very much managed by the local government. There are usually many citizen clubs,” he explained.
He continued, “The local government gives money and the local government sends people to take care of it. The grass on public sports fields isn’t used much, so you just leave it alone and it grows. If it’s sunny and it rains, you just mow it. When it’s shaded, when there’s a lot of foot traffic, or when it’s cold, the grass gets ruined. So when you add (temporary) grass, it lifts under the weight of the players. That’s why it gets criticized in the press a few times,” he explains.
“With golf course grass, it’s always good because they take care of it. So I think they should take care of it. Samsung C&T has a turf research center. They manage a lot of golf courses there. They have a lot of know-how, so they are better than government officials who are not turf experts. I told them that if they outsourced it to all the stadiums, the grass would be better, there would be no reason to be criticized by the media, and they could do it cheaper if they did it as a whole, so why not.”
He also explained that in Japan, the grass is rolled into whole bundles, while in Korea it is planted in square pieces. “Now that you’re listening to me, you’re not being criticized for the grass,” Lee said, drawing laughter.
He also pointed out that if the grass is not in good condition, players are more likely to get injured when kicking the ball. “If you have to kick the ball and you hear the grass, you might not be able to hit it properly because the ball will float, and if you miss, you’ll get hurt,” he explained.
He also revealed that he has been trying to introduce a machine that heats the grass. “When I was stressed out about the real grass, I ran up to the mayor’s office and said, ‘We have to change it,’ so the Paju Training Center was the first to implement it,” Lee said. 꽁머니
“Grass is very important,” said Lee. As the turf gets better, the number of fans increases. You have to prepare each one well. You just have to agree that it is much more advantageous to leave it to professionals (instead of local governments). I hope they look to the future and do well.”