British sports surface company
‘rescued’ Moscow pitch
in lead-up
to UEFA Champions League Final
The British company which installed the pitch in Moscow for the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea says there would not have been a match if they had not been called in.
George Mullan, chief executive officer of Support In Sport (SIS), said: “The pitch had been unplayable before we were called in at the end of April and we carried out the installation in two days.
“When we left the pitch in Moscow on May 2 it was signed off by the authorities as perfect for the final.
“The staff in Moscow at the Luzhniki Stadium have been in charge of the pitch since then and SIS has not been back to the stadium as our contract stipulated we hand over to the grounds team there.
“Changes in conditions which were reported over the last few days were not our responsibility - but Sir Alex Ferguson said the pitch was fine when his players went on it for training on Tuesday.”
The match on Wednesday at the Luzhniki Stadium took place, in heavy rain, on a natural grass pitch installed by SIS, which has offices in Cumbria, Ireland and Holland.
It is the fourth time SIS have installed a UEFA Champions League Final pitch.
George Mullan says: “We were delighted to be called in and won the contract after a tender process involving companies from Holland, Germany and Austria.”
Originally there was a synthetic pitch in the stadium for the England-Russia game in December 2007 but this was overlaid with a grass pitch grown on a palletised system.
This surface was not considered suitable for the Champions League Final and was removed, leaving the pallets in place.
“After we were called in we laser-levelled the sand surface over the pallets before bringing in 8,000 square metres of turf grown in Slovakia to lay over the pallet system,” said George.
A fleet of 28 refrigerated trucks took seven days to transport the turf 1,800 kilometres (1,120 miles) from Slovakia to Moscow.
In Moscow a team of 10 SIS crew installed the turf over two days - the same crew who installed the Champions League Final pitches at Amsterdam (1999), Hampden Park (2002) and Schalke04 (2003). SIS were called in by Russian company Sportmechanics, who had installed the 6,800 pallets of the ITM system in Luzhniki Stadium.
“The operation went very smoothly,” said George Mullan. “The surface was levelled using box grade lasers to deliver good levels.
“On May 2, after two days working on the pitch we handed it back to Sportmechanics and their head groundsman Matt Frost.”
UEFA officials reported that the pitch met all their requirements for top-level football.
