Milan slaps Uefa's wrist over pitch concerns: “It's perfect”
Milan City Hall issued a stern rebuke to Uefa Senior Match Operations Manager Keith Dalton, who said the surface at San Siro is "not fit for a final."
“The pitch at the San Siro is not fit to host a final. We face many problems to prepare a surface worthy of a Champions League final. The groundsman, will all due respect, is very young but he is also the only person with technical knowledge among the stadium’s operational staff. Everybody else can offer an opinion at best…” These words, spoken by Uefa’s Senior Match Operations Manager Keith Dalton, did not go down well at the Milan City Hall, which owns and operates the San Siro. On Friday, the local authorities handed out pictures of the playing surface to press covering the game.
The company responsible for stadium maintenance, M-I-Stadio, issued a stinging response to Dalton: “With respect to this Uefa executive, who has not been seen at San Siro in the three years of preparations for the final, we would like to highlight that, as well as his affirmations being untrue, it is genuinely contradictory because the playing surface is in perfect condition; the person in charge of stadium maintenance is also responsible for Serie A and Serie B. Furthermore, during Uefa’s periodic inspections that have been ongoing since October, the pitch has been rated at 4.5 stars out of on a scale of up to five.”