after CAF disapproves Independence Stadium
The Confederation of African Football has excluded The Gambia’s only stadium from the list of venues approved for Caf and Fifa matches. The list was released a few days ago in time for the start of the World Cup qualifies in Africa. The Gambia, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritius, Central African and Chad are among some 20 countries affected.
However, since The Gambia is not in the world Cup qualifiers, (having lost the preliminaries to Angola) the country may not necessarily and practically feel the ban immediately, at least until next year by which time the country would have upgraded the Independence Stadium.
Contacted for reactions to this development, Ebou Faye the General Manager of The Independence Stadium, said the ban is all the same an undesirable feeling. ”We have always known the poor state of the stadium and have in fact started maintenance work. Things like Scoreboard and re-grassing of the pitch to international standard may pose a big challenge but the biggest challenge would be to fix seats on the pavilions. That would require a lot of money,” Ebou Faye said.
