UEFA Pitch Quality Guidelines inspire pitch managers all over Europe

As you all know, expectations regarding pitch quality have grown exponentially over the past decades. The pressure to produce a perfect pitch 12 months a year is very high for pitch managers.

UEFA has noticed this growing challenge since 2015 and published her guidelines in 2018. These guidelines are based on more than 90 stadium visits annually and pitch surveys filled-in by clubs. The goal of these guidelines is not to tell clubs and stadiums what they should do.

in their own house, but rather a source of inspiration. They gather and collect the knowledge of pitch managers for the benefit of other clubs. The guidelines are available on the website of UEFA

More recently, pitch managers of venues hosting Club Finals and Euro 2020 are presented a self-assessment tool kit to be used by the grounds teams.  Training in the use of the equipment and training in the process for sharing results will be carried out by the pitch consultants. This process allows a better information exchange between the grounds teams, the pitch consultants and UEFA. The data provided allows pitch quality to be measurable rather than subjective.

With the TurfSyncApp, introduced by UEFA at EURO 2020, we see a user-friendly step towards data gathering and sharing on substantial scale in the field of pitch management. View the presentation of Mr Chiabrera on our Knowledge Platform to find out more details!

Our general conclusion is that pitch management is exploring the opportunities of data gathering and sharing more thoroughly. At ESSMA we are keen to discover which interesting things will happen in the years to come!