UEFA president Lennart Johansson, seen here 09 November 2004, said synthetic pitches would be allowed from the 2005/06 season. [Agencies]

European football's governing body has authorised the use of artificial pitches for its competitions, UEFA's executive committee ruled.

UEFA president Lennart Johansson said synthetic pitches would be allowed from the 2005/06 season at both club and national level, provided they adhered to quality guidelines set by UEFA.

Though qualifying matches for Euro 2008 in Switzerland and Austria have the option of being played on such pitches, William Gaillard, UEFA director of communications, said the finals would be on natural grass.

"We want to avoid the situation where players would be forced to play on both types of surface during the finals," Gaillard said.

"UEFA believes the quality of the fifth generation of synthetic pitches is excellent and this quality will continue to improve."

In England, Luton and Queens Park Rangers used to have plastic pitches during the 1980's.

Clubs in Scandinavia, eastern Europe and Russia, who only play matches at European level during the winter months, are expected to install artificial pitches.  

(Agencies)

artificial pitch: （人造草皮球场）

synthetic: produced by synthesis, especially not of natural origin（合成的, 人造的）