ONE MORE THING:SPAIN IS proving fertile ground for one Irish sports group. Support in Sport has been contracted to lay pitches for a number of leading clubs in La Liga in the past year. Now it has been contracted to provide the base for Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Co to demonstrate their silky skills next season.
The Irish group, founded by George Mullan in 2001, has won the prestigious contract to lay the pitch at the Nou Camp.
Support in Sport (SIS) is no stranger to the Catalan masters, having laid a state-of-the-art training pitch in Barcelona in just 48 hours earlier this year.
The job will involve removing 6cm from the surface of the existing pitch to add new “root zones” before using 9,000sq m of natural grass for the pitch itself, at what is Europe’s largest stadium.
The grass will come from purpose-grown turf farms in Germany and France.
The contract comes just weeks after it won a repeat order to lay a new surface for Barcelona’s rivals – and last season’s La Liga champions – Real Madrid at the Bernabeu.
Both projects will begin this month and will be completed in a 10-day window ahead of the start of the new season.
The latest contracts bring to four the number of Spanish clubs which have turned to Mullan’s group for new playing surfaces, the others being Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao.
SIS has seen turnover increase strongly in recent years – from €21.7 million in 2010 to €27.1 million last year.
Sligo-born Mullan believes the latest contract wins will help keep the company on target to secure sales of some €33 million this year.
The group, of which Mullan is almost sole owner and which employs 80 people full-time, has offices in Ireland, Britain, the Netherlands, Turkey, Angola, eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Apart from La Liga, the company is supplying pitches this summer for Galatasaray, Bilbao, Lille, Ajax, Torino and FC Copenhagen.
His CV also includes work for Premier League champions Manchester City, Italian champions Juventus and at Hampden Park.
He is currently also providing pitches for the new national stadium in Sweden, which opens in November with a match against England.
SIS has also provided surfaces – both grass and artificial – for events including the IRB Six Nations, the World Cup and the African Cup of Nations.
Mullan said SIS was taking another leaf out of its clients’ book and entering the transfer market. The company is currently looking at acquisitions “to broaden our range of products”, Mullan said.
His focus, he said, would be on smaller companies in its target markets.
He is in a strong position entering the market – unlike some of his sporting clients – having built SIS up from what was originally a small company he acquired in the Netherlands without ever resorting to borrowings.
