The Fédération Internationale de Hockey (FIH) has joined the EMEA Synthetic Turf Council (ESTC) as an affiliate member. The affiliate membership enables FIH to interact directly with the synthetic turf industry and to participate in the various ESTC knowledge forums.
ESTC Director General Stefan Diderich calls the membership a milestone for both the synthetic turf industry and the international hockey community: “FIH and ESTC share the ambition of sustainable and durable synthetic turf fields that don’t compromise on affordability and game experience. Having FIH onboard will help speed up the process as ESTC represents the entire synthetic turf value chain for synthetic turf for different applications. FIH will certainly also benefit from knowledge gained or best practises observed in other synthetic turf applications and which our members have achieved.”
Hockey, through the innovative leadership of the FIH, has over 40 years’ experience of playing on synthetic turf fields and now fully embraces this type of playing surface, using it for all high-level competitions. Looking to the future, the FIH is working with the synthetic turf industry to develop surfaces that perform as desired, but without the need to water them first.
Commenting on the FIH joining the ESTC, Jon Wyatt, FIH Sport and Development Director, says that playing on synthetic turf has made hockey the fast, exciting and technically skilful game that is now played by millions of people around the world. By joining the ESTC, the FIH will be able to strengthen its relationships with the companies producing the surfaces that hockey needs. It will also help to ensure that FIH is part of the debate as questions around sustainability, maximising opportunities and returns on investment and environmental considerations become ever more important.
