As readers of Sports Management will know, football’s world governing body FIFA has issued a major update of its FIFA Quality Programme for Football Turf. These are the requirements which regulate the use of artificial turf in football at all levels of the game.

The updated manuals contain new tests and new requirements all aimed at enhancing the performance and durability of artificial turf used for the game.

What readers should particularly note is a significant big-ticket item – a new accelerated wear machine – which is used to condition the samples being tested by ageing them significantly.

This is a game changer for FIFA Licencees who manufacture these type of products, in effect meaning that all the previous registered ‘systems’ that FIFA has recorded (reported to be 1,600) will now need to be at least in part re-examined within a year – the grace period given by FIFA to update any turf system which may require field-testing.

There are many changes contained within the new manual – new tests added to the requirements, including samples being tested for the first time for infill splash and the heating properties of the turf system. Those involved in the artificial turf industry should make an urgent point of familiarising themselves with these new requirements.

At goalball UK, we oversee a small but thriving disability sport for the visually impaired. We’re expanding rapidly and a fleet of volunteers keep clubs running and tournaments organised.

Our GB teams have achieved success and are aiming for Tokyo 2020.

More importantly, our players benefit from a community which gives them the skills and confidence to thrive. Young players are 47 per cent more likely than the rest of their visually impaired peers to be in full-time employment or education, so for many, goalball has meant the difference between a career and a life reliant on benefits.

I read with interest that minister for sport, Tracey Crouch, reiterated her promise not to measure the success of sports on participation and medals alone. Her view that the government’s new sports strategy will look at the overall value of sport, including improving health and educational outcomes, is the right one.

The minister’s speech about this could have been written about goalball and if we’re to reach more than the 1 per cent of visually impaired people who currently have access to the sport, it’s crucial the new strategy reflects the realities of modern disability sport and that her promises become a reality.