Sligoman participated in the World Cup final

An estimate Three billion viewers around the world watched France beat Croatia in the World Cup final on 15 July at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, on land manufactured by an Irish company. But George Mullan, the general manager and owner of SIS Pitches, had already left for the green and green grbad of the house.

The 56-year-old has flown to Ireland directly after the England-Croatia semifinal, welcoming that the six playgrounds built by his company for the most expensive World Cup from the story of the beautiful game were up to par. 19659004] After spending a day at his home in Sligo, where he runs a company that employs some 350 people around the world, Mullan flew to Chicago for a meeting. He had already focused on the company's next project: to install his first football pitch at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers.

SIS Pitches is today one of the largest sports field companies in the world. design, build, install and maintain locations. He has provided ground for previous World Cups, the final of the Uefa Champions League and for renowned clubs like Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, ​​Chelsea FC and Manchester United.

Contracts Russia 2018 will have added € 24m to the Irish sales of the company over two years at the end of 2018. But this income – and the congratulations of a world stage for his product – has been hard won and sometimes tense.

Mullan set his sights on the World Cup project five years ago. With the experience of installing land in Eastern European stadiums, SIS Pitches won a contract for the Spartak Moscow field. He also opened an office in Russia that employed local staff and then obtained a contract to build land for the Luzhniki stadium as well as for other stadiums for the tournament.

"When we were in the middle of the work for the Spartak Moscow Stadium, he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] went to Crimea," says Mullan. "Economic sanctions followed and we were sitting there wondering if our customers in Spartak would be on an economic blacklist. "

Russia 2018 was the first time that a World Cup final had been played on anything but natural turf.The Irish company built the fields by combining its system SISGrbad hybrid, which involves injecting artificial fibers into the grbad to improve the stability of the playing surface, and its product SISAir, which can drain a height in seconds if it rains and

SISGrbad, which was launched in 2015, is the company's flagship product and has already been installed at St George's Park, the English National Football Association's football center, on the grounds. Chelsea FC coaching staff and Istanbul's new Besiktas Stadium

"SISGrbad is the driving force behind sales and profitability," says Mullan. "It will have new sales of 9 million euros this year."

Mullan developed an interest in sports while growing up in Sligo, where he tried rugby, GAA and tennis. His family was in the cattle business and this background in buying and selling proved useful during the first chapter of his career, when the MBA graduate entered medical sales for the first time in his career. American Cyanamid. The conglomerate was dismantled after being acquired by American Home Products – the pharmaceutical company that changed its name to Wyeth and was eventually acquired by Pfizer.

Mullan was responsible for restructuring the badets of American Home Products in North America, South America and Europe. Stays in New Jersey and Kansas City. While he was working on turnarounds outside of Amsterdam, he learned that the husband of his personal badistant was a partner in a playground company called Support in Sport. After meeting the husband of his PA a few times, he was impressed by the technical expertise of the company.

"They had a small business that could go out and replace it in a few days, which was unusual," says Mullan.

At the time, Mullan and his wife Jo had resisted the efforts of his employer to bring him back to Kansas City and he wanted to take it on himself. Thus, in 2001, he bought Support in Sport, which was then in financial difficulty, and renamed the company SIS Pitches.

"When I did it, my salary went down to about 98pc," he says. "And I had no more private jet, which had amused me until I realized how much it was a waste of money."

Mullan, his family and SIS Pitches are settling in the UK, the largest business market in 2003. He began to develop artificial grbad for sports surfaces and to call the Premiership clubs to sell the product.

"It was really knocking on doors," says Mullan, who returned to Ireland in 2008 so that his two children could go to school. . "All the clubs had problems with the fields during the mid-season and we could take them out and give them a whole new pitch 24 hours later."

Nowadays, the big clubs come to him. However, the most lucrative market for SIS pitches is in the training pitches rather than playing pitches. To win the contract of 31 of the 100 training grounds of the Qatar World Cup, to be held in 2022, the company had to deliver stadium pitches. Its 130 employees in Dubai, where SIS Pitches also grows turf, are working on the project

However, as a result of the embargo imposed in Qatar last year by the United Arab Emirates and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, the 45 minute flight from Mullan Dubai to Doha is now an eight hour trek via Bahrain.

But the Sligoman has been accustomed to navigating geopolitical landscapes strained since his pharmaceutical era.

In Colombia, 20 years ago, he arrived in Bogota as general manager for defrauding the company. When he landed at the airport, he was greeted not only by the MD but also by two big, intimidating men. He was pushed into a jeep and driven around Bogota for two hours while claiming to MD angry that he had not planned to fire him. Mullan did it anyway the next day and left the country immediately.

When Mullan's staff was building land in Basra, they had to be protected by Iraqi police, the Iraqi army, and the US military. And en route to the Basra airport, Mullan discovered that he was shut down because of a terrorist attack. The Irishman was not even discouraged by the aftermath of the Angolan civil war – he built 14 fields for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, even though he did not want to see it. There were no water tanks, good roads or a secure electricity supply. SIS Group is headed from his home in Sligo and in motion – Mullan despises the work of an office – SIS Pitches did not have a base in Ireland until 2017.

"Everyone in Ireland is working from home from a laptop, but we "will eventually need to set up an office here, somewhere out of Dublin, and open a warehouse," says Mullan, who is evangelical about the beauty of Sligo.

SIS Pitches now offers the same turnkey service in Ireland that he sells from his offices in the UK, the Netherlands, Turkey, Russia, Dubai and Angola.He sells even residential artificial lawns that are As a result, SIS Pitches has already registered a turnover of 4 M € on its domestic market to date

The pitch provider probably generated a number of Of € 63 million in 2017, against 54.5 million "We will continue to have exciting growth over the next few years, and we have no debt, no borrowing, no overdraft and are significantly profitable."

In the United Kingdom, where SIS Pitches has its manufacturing base in Cumbria, the company has just won "the biggest artificial turf contract" in the country by the British government. Mullan refused to identify the project because the contracts have not yet been signed, but values ​​it at £ 15m (€ 16.9m) over four years. Earlier this month, the company opened a 2 million pound factory in Maryport City, Cumbria, for the British and Irish markets.

Mullan has been facing difficult events in countries such as Iraq and Colombia. Brexit deal. But that does not mean that he does not prepare for it.

"I do not think that will happen," he says. "But if that's the case, I'm just going to have to continue … When you have the habit of dealing with places like Russia and Kazakhstan, you just have to overcome that."

"If Brexit means, say, 20pc tariffs for us, we go up sticks and move on to Eastern Europe." We considered opening a factory in the Republic. Czech – you could set up a factory there in 12 months. "

SIS Pitches has also diversified into other sports: he has set up a field in Japan for Rugby World Cup l 39; ;next year. Built the first synthetic pitch for professional rugby players at Saracens RFC, and just installed wickets on the Oval and Lord cricket grounds.

Mullan has withdrawn from a planned joint venture for China because he realized he "did not completely understand" so he decided to focus instead on the United States, which he considers to have the greatest potential for SIS lands.

He hopes that the Green Bay Packers agreement will allow him to win contracts with other teams of the NFL on the 16,000 American Golf Courses

"The United States is huge for us and must decide if it is installed there, as we did in Russia" said Mullan.