As far as the planned upgrading of stadiums, road infrastructure and bringing all relevant stakeholders on board in the tourism and commerce sectors is concerned, Namibia remains well on course and will soon tick all the boxes in its joint 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) bid.
This was the strong surety advanced by the sport ministry’s executive director Audrin Mathe during an exclusive interview yesterday with New Era Sport, where he unpacked all things around Namibia and Botswana’s joint bid for the 2027 Afcon.
Mathe kicked off the conversation by providing an update on the upgrade and reconstruction of the various stadiums earmarked to be included in the 2027 Afcon bidding process, saying the N$50 million that treasury gave towards the upgrading of the Independence stadium early this year is the first of many steps to get the facility reapproved again by Caf and Fifa.
“The ministry advertised a tender for the upgrading and reconstruction of the Independence stadium, where all various consultancy firms were invited to submit their bids to do work on the stadium. That process ran its course and recently closed, which will now soon see us selecting and announcing the successful bidders that will do the work. I think it is also important to clarify that the N$50 million we got from treasury is not part of the bigger work that has to be done on the stadium in line with our 2027 Afcon bid, but its solely to upgrade the stadium to a point where we regain Caf and Fifa approval to host international matches at home again,” explained Mathe.
He also shared that the allocated N$50 million will mostly go towards installing hundreds of individual seats across the whole stadia and not only in the VIP sections as is currently the case, and will also go towards renovating and upgrading media rooms, teams’ locker rooms, toilets, showers and electrical works; among many others.
As part of the country’s 2027 Afcon bid scope, Mathe said the plan is to upgrade the Independence stadium to a 45 000-capacity venue, which will boast all modern-day facilities as required by both Caf and Fifa. This stadium currently has a holding capacity of 25 000.
“But we must also be honest with ourselves. We struggle to fill up stadiums in this country and even on big soccer derby days, we still at times struggle to fill up our venues. So, it was proposed that we should rather look into options where the Independence stadium’s capacity can be increased to 45 000 by using modern dismountable structures to construct additional stands, which will later be demounted when the competition ends.”
An example of stadiums that took the route of increasing capacity through modern dismountable structures is Qatar’s Stadium 974, which will be used for the upcoming 2022 Fifa World Cup.
For the Qatar venue, the stadium’s capacity will be increased by using the modern dismountable structures techniques, which will include additional mobile seats, restrooms, and multi-purpose stands.
The advantage of using dismountable structures, Mathe explained, is that countries always have the luxury of reconstructing a similar facility at a different location using the same materials, or even divide into smaller sport arenas when a similar need arises.
The coastal town of Swakopmund has been chosen as the second host town for the 2027 Afcon, if Namibia and Botswana’s bid does succeed.
On the Swakopmund front, Mathe said they are targeting the town’s Vineta stadium as a second hosting venue. The plan is to increase the stadium’s capacity to 15 000 seats from the current holding capacity of 10 000.
“Also remember that Caf and Fifa say that any town or city hosting such games of such magnitude should be in a 60km radius of an international airport and currently, our international airports are in Windhoek and in Walvis Bay. Swakopmund falls perfectly within the required 60km radius and that’s why it was chosen. Also, it is no secret that Namibia’s coastal towns have some of the world’s best natural sceneries and that again speaks to our country’s efforts in the areas of sport tourism and so forth,” added Mathe, who said Swakopmund’s Mondesa sports field will also be upgraded for teams to use as a training venue.
- ohembapu@nepc.com.na