Quayclean staff the unsung heroes of the AFL season

Quayclean Australia Chief Executive Mark Piwkowski, has paid tribute to his staff for ensuring the 2020 AFL season was completed free of COVID-19.

With the AFL Grand Final to be staged at the Gabba on Saturday, Quayclean has been responsible for cleaning at over 120 AFL games this season, including 78 fixtures in the Queensland ‘bubble’ of the Gabba and Metricon Stadium.

Advising that his staff carried an enormous responsibility to ensure AFL venues were hygienic and surfaces free from COVID-19 virus before, during and after each game, Piwkowski advised “I believe it is fair to say Quayclean’s dedicated staff have been the unsung heroes of the AFL competition while COVID-19 restrictions have been in place.

“Had either the Gabba or Metricon Stadium, where the vast majority of games were played after the resumption of the season, recorded an instance of the COVID-19 virus, the entire AFL season would have been thrown into chaos.”

Quayclean staff spent around 15,000 hours making sure that touch points and surfaces at the Gabba and Metricon Stadium were free of the COVID-19 virus.

Quayclean was also responsible for AFL games at Adelaide Oval, SCG, Giants Stadium, Marvel Stadium and GMHBA Stadium Geelong.

With an estimated Grand Final crowd of 30,000 fans expected this Saturday, Quayclean staff will complete:

• 1000 Pre Clean hours - Includes general refresh of all areas and deep cleaning of the seating bowl, toilets and concourse areas
• 160 hours rotational cleaning during the Grand Final - Includes general cleaning of concourse, toilets, and touch point cleaning 
• 300 Post Event hours - removing all waste (seating bowl, concourse, internals). Full clean of all areas 

Quayclean staff will be cleaning and disinfecting areas and surfaces including team changing rooms, coaches rooms and interchange benches; umpires rooms; media conference rooms, tables and chairs; media facilities including radio and TV broadcast areas, desks and chairs; lifts and escalators; handrails, doorknobs, support ledges, toilets, light switches, phones, fridges, taps; stadium equipment control areas and items such as photocopiers and printers.

Quayclean staff use Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved hospital-grade cleaning and disinfectant products and completed special training programs to ensure venues were safe for players, officials, media and stadium event-day staff.

All Quayclean staff are certified in the Government recommended ‘Infection Control Training - COVID 19’ program.

In addition, Quayclean staff were responsible for NRL games played at Cbus Stadium, SCG, GIO Stadium in Canberra and Sydney’s Jubilee Oval and Brookvale Oval.

The company was also responsible for the Sydney Spring Racing Carnival race day meetings at Royal Randwick, including The Everest as well as Rosehill Gardens.

All tickets that were put on general sale for the AFL Grand Final on Saturday were snapped up within 20 minutes as of yesterday morning.

Image shows Quayclean staff at work.