Manaus pitch in need of urgent work

Mar 24, 2014

THE Arena Amazonia in Manaus is undergoing emergency repair work on the pitch just 86 days before England kick-off their World Cup campaign there against Italy

THE Arena Amazonia in Manaus is undergoing emergency repair work on the pitch just 86 days before England kick-off their World Cup campaign there against Italy.

Manaus sits deep in the Amazon jungle and the heat has made turf difficult to grow in the city, while the overuse of fertiliser has killed sections of the turf.

The state overseer of the stadium, Jerocilio Silva, has had to admit that the pitch has been fertilised too aggressively and that the Sao Paulo company in charge of the surface have returned to the stadium to solve the problem.

'That’s the treatment for it to blossom again,' said Silva in a report by The Independent.

Our company will try to solve the problem.'

Three workers died last year during construction of the 44,500-capacity stadium, which is now 98 per cent complete, causing a court to suspend the work on the roof after one of them fell 35 metres to his death.

A heap of rubble next door marks the spot where a restaurant is meant to stand next summer, but construction work is yet to begin.

Manaus' jungle location have made construction difficult for the tournament's organisers, with materials and expertise coming from outside of the region.

The acidic soil has made the cultivation of grass difficult, while the importation of steel frames from Portugal was delayed for two years, according to Silva, and the German-made sophisticated outer membrane, designed to reduce the heat on the players, had also been delayed.

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