Norway’s Alfheim Stadion Achieves Highest FIFA Certification for 7th Consecutive Year

The FieldTurf surface at Alfheim Stadion in Tromsø, Norway, has achieved the top level of FIFA certification for seven consecutive years — an “extremely rare” accomplishment, according to Paul Fraser, Marketing Director for FieldTurf Europe. Only 13 of the 2500+ FIFA Certified fields have completed this feat.

As the home field for the Norwegian Premier League’s Tromsø IL — the world’s northernmost top-level soccer club — the Alfheim pitch was installed by FieldTurf in 2010 to meet FIFA’s rigid standards. Independent FIFA-certified laboratories test the surface each year to determine if club groundskeepers are maintaining it to the governing body’s highest standards.

“It’s a very tight set of parameters, and if the field is being used a lot — as this one is — it’s tougher to maintain those standards,” Fraser said. “It’s difficult to do so for five years, and this one has now received certification for seven years. There aren’t a great number of examples like it.”

Parameters of the test include ball-surface interaction (such as ball-roll speed, and bounce angle and height) and player-surface interaction (including torque and shock absorption).

The field features FieldTurf’s Duraspine Ultra monofilament fiber system.

Fraser also attributed the field’s latest FIFA certification, good through October 2017, to Tromsø’s staff. “All synthetic turf fields will only perform well if they are maintained well,” he said.