Argentina forward Lionel Messi celebrates June 27 after scoring on a free kick during the second half of a World Cup Group J soccer match against Jordan in Arlington.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON – The World Cup is over. So is its grass.
More than 10,000 square yards of natural turf, pampered with grow lights, climate control and years of planning, will be removed from AT&T Stadium. The Dallas Cowboys say the grass will not be preserved, though the sand and soil beneath it will be reused.
It wasn’t just any field. Soccer’s biggest stars, including Argentina’s Lionel Messi, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Norway’s Erling Haaland, danced and dribbled across it during the stadium’s nine World Cup matches.
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FIFA handed control of the stadium back to the Cowboys after Tuesday’s semifinal, leaving the team to decide the field’s fate.
“The grass will die,’’ the team said Wednesday by email, ending days of conflicting responses about whether it might find a second life elsewhere.
“The soil / sand of it will still be good and utilized in a future project,” according to the Cowboys’ email. Asked where it will be stored and when crews will begin removing the turf, the team responded, “TBD.”
The pink glow of specialized LED grow lights illuminates freshly laid sod inside of AT&T Stadium, May 14, 2026. The lights are designed to stimulate photosynthesis and accelerate growth.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
That answer resolved what had become a surprisingly murky question.
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Last week, Joe Trahan, director of communications for North Texas’ FIFA World Cup organizing committee, said in an email that the grass and other materials could be used in future construction projects.
In an email Monday to The Dallas Morning News, he said the stadium and the Cowboys would try to “stockpile the grass.”
He said it would be used for “backfill,” without explaining what that meant or where the material would go. Trahan said grass would be “sifted through” to take out the plastic yarns reinforcing the grass, which could make it difficult to replant.
He said crews with bobcats, heavy excavators and trucks would likely spend a week removing the grass.
Wednesday, outside AT&T Stadium, Trahan told The News he had “no idea” about the Cowboys’ plans. He described the grass as a “FIFA product” and said the international soccer body would decide what to do with it.
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Specialized LED grow lights illuminate the World Cup pitch inside AT&T Stadium on May 13, 2026. The system was part of the extensive effort to maintain FIFA’s natural grass playing surface.
Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News
Trahan said AT&T Stadium general manager Tod Martin was not available for interviews and Martin did not respond to phone calls.
The grass, a mix of rye and Kentucky bluegrass reinforced with plastic, required climate control and specialized grow lights inside AT&T Stadium. Other officials said it isn’t suited to survive the North Texas summer once removed from the stadium.
Piece of the pitch
While the World Cup grass in Arlington is headed for removal, the field at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey is expected to become a souvenir.
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The stadium is hosting Sunday’s World Cup final and FIFA has said the turf will later be cut into squares and sold to fans for as much as $3,000 apiece.
“Own a genuine piece of football history,” the FIFA store website says. The grass is encased and permanently preserved in acrylic.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has long maintained that the grass was only a temporary concession to FIFA, which requires natural playing surfaces for World Cup matches.
Once the tournament ended, he previously said, the stadium would be converted back to its artificial turf in time for the Cowboys’ preseason schedule.
He said that synthetic turf offers greater flexibility for the venue’s busy calendar of NFL games, concerts and other events and rejected the idea that grass is inherently safer for football players.
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The Cowboys’ preseason home opener against New Orleans is Aug. 28. That doesn’t give crews much time to reconstruct the corner field level suites that had to be removed to make room for the wider and longer soccer pitch.
Final celebration
Less than 24 hours after the semifinal, the World Cup was already vanishing from Arlington.
The letters of the AT&T Stadium sign, covered for a month, gleamed once again, a reminder that its temporary identity as “Dallas Stadium” was over.
In a video posted on the stadium’s social media accounts, Jones proclaimed that football was back. Meanwhile, colorful FIFA banners lay in heaps along AT&T Way as workers dismantled the metal fences that had guided international soccer fans into the stadium.
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Wednesday, local leaders and World Cup volunteers gathered for a final celebration on the pitch.
On his way to the private party, an Arlington city employee pulled a small plastic baggie from his pocket. Before the grass disappeared, he said, he hoped to preserve a small piece of World Cup history.