Roker Roundup: Stadium of Lights! Report claims KLD investing in state of the art pitch lighting

Stadium of Lights

Kyril Louis-Dreyfus only officially completed his takeover of Sunderland last week, but he has wasted no time investing money into the club.

Following the takeover, the club’s Head of Supporter Engagement Chris Waters will return to work as of today, and the club also announced that they will be investing into the matchday streaming experience, with the enhanced techniques starting against Fleetwood on Tuesday evening.

Next in KLD’s sights is improving the playing surface at the Stadium of Light, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

The report says that following criticism in the state of the pitch by Lee Johnson, Louis-Dreyfus is prepared to pay £500,000 to install the HF Pro hybrid turf system, as installed at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The new pitch will have grow lights suspended above the surface via rails installed at either end of the pitch, rather than on the pitch using wheel-on structures that can damage the playing surface - as is more common in large stadiums.

Photo by MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Photo by MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Mirabelli on hard negotiations

Former scout during the Roberto Di Fanti era, Massimiliano Mirabelli, has been Chief Scout at Inter Milan and Sporting Director at their rivals AC Milan since leaving Sunderland.

During an interview with Calcio Mercato that goes over his career so far, Mirabelli discusses how he found the the English style of negotiating difficult during his spell in the North East, even if he found the whole experience ‘beautiful’.

Mirabelli explains that the English style of negotiating was almost entirely done through emails, rather than the Italian way of using phone calls and meetings to negotiate:

Beautiful, the English league is a wonderful league. Although they are used to working differently there than in Italy.

I was part of a working group that dealt with scouting, but it’s hard to negotiate: they use email a lot, but there are few phone calls and meetings....

Photo by Marco Canoniero/LightRocket via Getty Images