TenCate and FC Twente enter three year partnership
TenCate has entered into a three year partnership with FC Twente. The collaboration brings research and product development closer to the daily practice of professional football, with players and staff from both the men’s and women’s teams contributing their experience and feedback.
For TenCate, understanding a sports surface starts with understanding how it is actually used. Laboratory testing provides detailed information about how a surface performs under controlled conditions. The experience of players and staff adds something different: insight from training, movement and repeated use in the real world. The partnership with FC Twente creates another environment where those two perspectives can come together.
“Sport surfaces improve when development starts with the people who play on them every day. That requires research, testing and close collaboration in practice. With FC Twente, there is an opportunity to deepen that knowledge further, together with players and staff from both the men’s and women’s teams.”
Michael Vogel, CEO TenCate
More perspectives from professional football
FC Twente adds to the research and field collaborations already in place at TenCate. At PSV, the FieldLab at the club’s academy is used to test products and gather data and feedback from players and staff. The addition of FC Twente brings another professional football environment into that process, with different players, teams and daily training experiences. This broader input helps deepen the understanding of player surface interaction and provides practical insight for the continued development of sports surfaces.
Dominique Scholten, General Director of FC Twente:
“Proud that TenCate and FC Twente are entering into a multi year partnership. With TenCate, a partner comes on board that brings sport, research and development close together. That fits well with the ambitions of FC Twente and the development of Topsportcampus Diekman. There is much to look forward to over the next three seasons.”
Research connected to the game
Research at TenCate combines laboratory testing, field testing, data analysis and feedback from the people using sports surfaces. The objective is not simply to test whether a surface meets a standard, but to better understand what happens when an athlete accelerates, stops, turns and changes direction on it.
Bringing more real world experience into that process creates a wider basis for learning and development. The partnership with FC Twente is another step in that direction.