S showpiece football tournament featuring Messi and Ronaldo , was made possible thanks to the world ’ s first fully indoor hybrid pitch built in 21 days by global sports surfaces specialist , SIS Pitches .
SPORT PITCHES
SIS sets the stage for Riyadh ’ s season cup with first fully indoor hybrid pitch
eason Cup , Riyadh ’ s
S showpiece football tournament featuring Messi and Ronaldo , was made possible thanks to the world ’ s first fully indoor hybrid pitch built in 21 days by global sports surfaces specialist , SIS Pitches .
The competition forms part of the Riyadh Season , a festival featuring both live sport and entertainment in the capital , funded by the Saudi government ’ s Public Investment Fund . All Season Cup games take place at the Kingdom Arena in front of 24,000 fans . During the competition , the stadium received two Guinness World Records . The first for being the largest covered football stadium ; the second for having the largest seating capacity for an indoor covered stadium .
Setting the stage for the cup ’ s major fixtures , including Al Nassr vs . Inter Miami , was a major challenge for SIS Pitches . Construction and development of the elite indoor sports venue started in late 2023 , giving the business a much shorter window to install and prepare a playing surface fit for top-level competition .
However , this short window was only one part of the challenge . SIS also had to ensure the natural turf grew strong enough to properly secure the small percentage of synthetic fibres stitched into the arena ’ s surface , as is standard for hybrid pitches of this type . This process was made harder by the arena ’ s fully indoor design , which has no windows or roof for sunlight to enter . The SIS team worked around this by using ultraviolet growing lights to prepare the pitch in time .
Sela , the developer responsible for the arena , requested a game-ready playing surface in just three weeks , much shorter than the typical window for a major development of this type . This aligned with the pace of construction for the wider
14 GroundskeepingJournal . co . uk | March / April 2024