Dr John Sorochan

Dr John Sorochan is a professor of turfgrass science at the University of Tennessee and one of North America's leading authorities on sports field management. He has spent decades researching the behaviour of natural grass under the extreme conditions imposed by professional sport, and has previously consulted on pitch preparation for Super Bowls and other major events held in stadia not originally built for grass.

FIFA appointed Sorochan as a specialist pitch adviser for World Cup 2026, charged with overseeing the installation and maintenance of natural playing surfaces across the tournament's North American venues. The appointment reflects a direct response to player and manager complaints about pitch quality at previous tournaments, where degraded surfaces drew widespread criticism.

The core challenge Sorochan faces is biological and architectural: several 2026 venues are enclosed or retractable-roof NFL stadia where light levels, air circulation, and heat stress make natural grass extremely difficult to sustain at elite standard. MetLife Stadium, host of the final, is among the most demanding. Whether science can reliably solve what is essentially a horticultural problem inside an engineering structure remains the open question his appointment is intended to answer.