The sports minister Sunday Dare is optimistic that the National Stadium, Lagos will be in good enough shape to host Super Eagles matches by May 2021.
Dare sounded enthusiastic during an inspection tour of the rehabilitation work going on at the iconic but dilapidated stadium, which used to be the permanent home ground of Nigeria’s national teams before it was allowed to get into a severe state of disrepair.
“It’s high time we had a familiar ground for our national teams. The Moshood Abiola National Stadium Abuja and the National stadium, Lagos will be ready to host matches next year and it will be a major plus to our teams when they have a familiar ground,” the minister said.
“This arrangement is under the ‘Adopt’ initiative which is a public-private model that we developed. We were able to pitch that to the private sector. We discussed with a philanthropist and lover of sports, Sir Adebutu Keshington, who was convinced about the proposal.
“He is somebody that has the youth of this country at heart and has done so much to support youth and sports development.
“As a form of Corporate Social Responsibility, he is committed to providing funding at 100 percent and we have no doubt that it will be completed in May.
“The stadium has a rich history with the likes of Christian Chukwu, Segun Odegbami and a host of ex-internationals who played in the memorable edifice that hosted so many international competitions. The engineer working on the site has assured that the stadium will be ready for use by May next year.”
A lack of maintenance culture has been largely responsible for the damage to public facilities in the country, but Dare assured that a template will be put in place to ensure that the facility does not go back to its poor state.
He explained: “The Ministry has a department of facility which is building a template for maintenance of the stadium. We have facility managers from the private sector that will work with our department of facility. Maintaining this facility is critical and we are going to take it very seriously.”
The National Stadium, Lagos was inaugurated in 1973 and it hosted the All Africa Games that year.
It has also hosted the 1980 and 2000 Africa Cup of Nations finals, as well as the 1999 FIFA U-20 World Cup but the facility has been in terrible shape for the past 20 years.
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