The majority of competitive football is played on natural grass pitches provided by a wide range of stakeholders from private ownership to schools and Local Authorities. The current quality of natural turf pitches varies throughout the country.
Improvements to the stock of grass pitches are essential to ensure as many players as possible have the opportunity to play on a defined standard for playing surfaces. It is recognised that natural turf pitches have a limited number of playing hours per week.
Performance Quality Standard
The Performance Quality Standard (PQS) provides a recommended minimum quality standard for the maintenance and construction of pitches. Specifically, it sets the basic standard recommended for natural grass pitches, which may be located at a variety of locations including a Club site, within a park or recreational ground.
Click here for The FA's Outdoor Pitch Guidance Notes.
Click here for Grass Pitch Quality Performance Standards.
Annual Maintenance
Identifying the current carrying capacity of their pitches via self-assessment and monitoring of pitches throughout the season with regards to number of games with the intention of improving outputs via maintenance plan improvements. This may be carried out in conjunction with the organisations football development plan.
Click here for The FA's IOG Groundsman's Guidance document.
Click here for the Performance Quality Standard Tables.
