Bernabeu gets a rub of the green

SLIGO’S George Mullan is becoming a regular fixture at Champions League finals and continues that tradition in the Bernabeu Stadium on Saturday night.

Mullan is chief executive of Support in Sport (SIS) Ireland, a market leader in the manufacture and installation of sports surfaces and pitches around the world.

The clash of Bayern Munich and Inter Milan will be the fifth decider of UEFA’s showpiece tournament to be played on a surface designed and installed by Mullan’s team.

The process began almost a year ago, according to Mullan.

He explained: “We were approached last summer, they (Real Madrid) were having problems with the pitch. One of the biggest issues they have in Madrid is that there is only one access point to the pitch. It is four metres wide and 3.5 metres high which makes any work extremely difficult.

“So we set about taking out the whole pitch through that opening which was a huge task. That equated to 4,000 tons of soil and then we removed the under soil heading system which was made up of 28km of pipes.

“We then had to replace all that piping and create a new pitch from scratch.

“We brought the pitch in on 24 refrigerated trucks from Germany. It was one of our most difficult projects because of the access issues.”

The narrow confines of the stadium weren’t the only headache for Mullan and his team.

“We did this last summer but the problem was Real were unveiling new players on a regular basis and every time they did, we had to cease operations!”

With the new sod in place, the next phase of the SIS operation swung into action.

“We put together a maintenance programme and have been over and back overseeing that. Paul Burgess who formerly worked with Arsenal is the head grounds man and has done a fantastic job. We have a team of eight out there at the moment and I am heading out there on Friday for a final check before the game.

“They are delighted with it, so much so that they gave us a new contract to undertake major work on their training pitches. We have also won a number of other contracts on the back of this work. We have projects in Benfica and Ajax in the next couple of weeks, we are flat out.”

Meanwhile Bayern Munich have accepted the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision to dismiss their appeal to overturn Franck Ribery’s suspension from the Champions League final.

Bayern had made an appeal to the CAS against UEFA’s decision to ban the Frenchman for three games following his red card in the first leg of their semi-final tie against Lyon.

They felt that the decision to rate the red card as violent conduct was incorrect and that Ribery should instead be punished for dangerous foul play, which could have warranted just a one-match ban and which would consequently have applied to the second leg of the semi-final.

However, the CAS informed Bayern that, due to legal reasons, they could not enforce their own judgment of the incident and that they could therefore not overturn UEFA’s decision.

“FC Bayern Munich must and will accept and respect the judgement of the CAS,” the Bundesliga club said in a press release.

“FC Bayern Munich took every legal route possible in the interest of the club, their supporters and of course Franck Ribery.”

Ribery may therefore have played his last game for the club having rated his chances of staying at the club as “50/50” on French television station TF1.

The Frenchman is due to hold talks with Bayern regarding his future over the next few days and should he opt not to extend his contract, he is likely to be sold by the Bavarians one year before his contract expires.