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ESTO publishes Position Paper on “Plastic” Synthetic Turf football fields
2007-10-19
Recently, an important football match for the UEFA Championships 2008 was played in Moscow on Synthetic Turf . For the Synthetic Turf industry this was an exceptional event and an important precedent. Since the 1980’s, when Synthetic Turf was first introduced in the UK, this industry has made enormous technical improvements. Since the past 7 years the third generation of Synthetic Turf has managed to overcome all of the technical and playability barriers experienced in the very beginning. Under these new conditions Synthetic Turf has reached an unprecedented level of acceptability. FIFA and UEFA, supporting the European standardisation process for Synthetic Turf, have recognised that the performance criteria compared to top quality natural grass have been widely demonstrated. Subsequently, FIFA and UEFA have therefore adapted their “Rules of The Game” to allow World Cup and European Cup matches to be played on Synthetic Turf. The success of Synthetic Turf is particularly on communal training fields, but also in top league stadiums where careful evaluations are giving positive results. In Europe alone, since the year 2000, the number of fields annually installed has been boosted from 200 to over 2500! Unbiased research has shown that Synthetic Turf does not have a higher injury level than natural grass. On the contrary, Synthetic Turf is frequently used for recovery training of the injured for its stable surface. We therefore share the view with both UEFA and FIFA that Synthetic Turf has enormous advantages and amongst these it allows access to football, thus sport, to a much wider fraction of the population and younger people in the first place. Synthetic Turf can make football much more attractive and allows play for many more hours on the same field under excellent and very consistent conditions Football can be an extremely expensive sport for communities that do not have the fortune to be located in the richer part of the world, or which are located in the very cold or the very hot regions where natural grass does not grow as easily as in the UK. Synthetic Turf is the solution opening access to football and many more sports to everybody in the world and to play under good conditions. Finally, Synthetic Turf allows considerable water savings, particularly in areas where water is such a vital and costly resource and Synthetic Turf needs no fertilisers at all. We invite you to address your possible questions to us, please feel free to contact us on this very subject at info@eu-syntheticturf.org. Notes to Editors - Synthetic turf in Europe is a € 1 billion+ business, with dynamic growth rates. Together with the USA, Europe is the global leader in this activity.
- The founding members of ESTO are:
Bonar Yarns, Desso Sports Systems, Domo Sports & Leisure Grass, Edel Grass, FieldTurf Tarkett, Greenfields, Lano Sports, Limonta Sport, Mondo Tufting, Poligras, Polytan, Saltex, Ten Cate & Tessiture Pietro Radici & TigerTurf.
- Membership of ESTO is open to any producer of yarn for synthetic turf or of the tufted surfaces forming the turf, having production facilities in Europe, subject to requirements on quality and financial standing. Associate membership will be made available shortly to other industry stakeholders.
- ESTO has been formed as a sector group within EATP, the European Association for Textile Polyolefins, a respected and influential industry association in Brussels. It follows EATP’s strict rules of conduct on competition policy compliance.
- The offices of ESTO are at:
6, Avenue Van Nieuwenhuyse
B - 1160 Brussels
Tel + 32 2 676 74 72
Fax + 32 2 676 74 74
URL http://www.eu-syntheticturf.org/
- For further information, please contact :
Arnoud Fiolet – Chairman
Spokesperson for Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Luxemburg, Romania, United Kingdom
Enrico Buriani – Vice Chairman
Spokesperson for Albania, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey
Axel Alpen – Chairman Technical Committee
Spokesperson for Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
Ralph Jorissen – Chairman Communications Committee
Spokesperson for Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden
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