The Confederation of African Football, Caf, in a recent circular to its members, has advised national associations to use this long break from football to bring their stadiums to standard.
Over the years, Caf has always sent inspection teams mostly comprising prominent African football legends who went around the continent to inspect the standard of stadiums and to ensure they meet certain mandatory requirements for Caf matches to take place therein.
In a few cases recently, member states whose stadiums failed woefully below standard have had their home matches taken to nearby countries.
A source told The Standard yesterday that The Gambia has on several occasions almost nearly failed this test with its relative old facilities at the Independence Stadium.
The Standard also understands that the Gambia Football Federation, GFF, has brought the attention of the management of the Independence Stadium to this Caf advice.
The Independence Stadium is run by government through a board and management under the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
Yesterday, a senior government official confirmed to The Standard that the Stadium management and its board have taken up the matter with the relevant authorities.
” I can have confirm that they have written to the Ministry and even the GFF for possible intervention to improve facilities at the Stadium. I am not sure how their the responses have been so far,” our source added.
According to our source, the Stadium management is concerned that important features of the edifice, built since 1983, are fading.” They have raised concern about the poor state of sanitary conditions especially for spectators at the stadium, the non-existent of a control room or sound system; modern dressing room, the lack of standby generator among things,” our source concluded.
