CEN-TC 217, the technical committee for sports surfaces of the European Committee for Standardization, has appointed Roberto Armeni as the new chair.
The European Committee for Standardization is a network of 34 countries recognized by both the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as the body responsible for establishing and defining voluntary standards at the European level.
TC-217 is the Technical Committee for sports surfaces. Its sub-committees cover test methods, classification, environmental aspects of sports surfaces, surfaces of sports halls, turf areas, unbound mineral surfaces, synthetic surfaces, angled ball behaviour, shock absorption and friction.
In his daily life, Armeni is the Managing Director of Labosport Italy. He has been an integral part of Labosport Group for many years, working across strategy, transformation, and innovation and brings deep technical insight to his new appointment. Labosport Group CEO, Gabriel Gendreau, is happy and proud of this appointment. “It clearly states our ambition to take our responsibility, for the common interest of the whole sport surface industry. With his long career at Labosport, undisputed technical know-how, and a strong sense for quality, he was the natural candidate.”
Long career
Throughout his 34-year career, Armeni has maintained numerous leadership positions focused on strategy and improvement initiatives within the industry. Since 2003, he has led the sector in national and international seminars where he is regularly the auditor or guest speaker. He was the consultant to the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) during its outline of the test protocol for artificial grass surfaces, now in its 3rd edition. He is also the coordinator for the Italian Standardization Body (UNI) working group CT020/GL03.
Armeni is often the Party-appointed Technical Consultant (CTP) in Preventive Technical Assessment (ATP) expert activities in legal disputes related to production defects or damage suffered by installed products such as 11-a-side football fields, 5-a-side and 7-a-side football fields, tennis courts, athletics tracks, wooden gyms, PVC gyms, and playgrounds.
In 2011, Armeni was appointed to the Board of Directors of the International Association for Sport Surfaces Sciences (ISSS). The Association brings together laboratories and experts serving in the sports sector and acts as a comparison body between the numerous countries for the verification of the development of test techniques. In 2015, Armeni was nominated president of the Association.