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Roselyne Sachiti in LILONGWE Malawi
The modern sports facilities in Liliongwe, the Griffins Saenda Indoor Sports Complex and the Bingu National Stadium, yesterday impressed Vice President Kembo Mohadi during a tour with him saying Zimbabwe is benchmarking what it should be doing.
Speaking soon after the tour, VP Mohadi said sporting disciplines like athletics require world-standard facilities like those he saw. We are benchmarking what we should be doing as Zimbabwe vis a vis what is happening in Malawi. We know you hosted the Region 5 Youth Games in December 2022, and it was a success.
“Within the region, you are one of the countries that was approved as having a stadium that meets the FIFA expectations,” he said.
VP Mohadi noted that while Zimbabwe has many sports facilities, there was need to spruce them up to standard. “We have quite a number of sports facilities, but they are a little bit aged. We need to spruce them up. We were not qualified by FIFA because we did not have bucket seats.
“We have quite a number of stadiums. Each and every city in Zimbabwe has big stadiums,” he said.
Malawi’s senior government officials including the Minister of Youth and Sports Uchizi Mkandawire; and the Secretary for Youth and Sports Isaac Katopola accompanied VP Mohadi and his delegation.
Mr Katopola said Griffin Saenda Indoor Sports Complex had a seating capacity for 2500 people. The project was funded by the Malawi government and construction commenced in 2021.
“It is yet to be completed but was able to host Region 5 Youth Games in December 2022. The original project scope was to accommodate netball only, with one main court and two training courts, only. However, the project coincided with Malawi’s hosting of the 2022 Region Under 20 Youth Games which comprised 12 sports disciplines.
“It was observed that most sports codes would need indoor facilities and could therefore be incorporated into the project. That was found to be cost-effective other than constructing separate facilities for each sport,” he said.
So the complex included facilities for netball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, squash, judo, taekwondo, chess, and all appropriate indoor sports codes.
He said Bingu National Stadium, the only FIFA and CAF-approved football stadium in Malawi, was constructed between 2013-2015. It was opened in 2016 and has a seating capacity of 40 000.
“It is owned and managed by the Malawi government through the Ministry of Youth and Sports. All revenue collected at the stadium is deposited into government account number one, which is no longer accessed by the stadium. It receives monthly funding from Treasury for its operations,” he said.
The stadium has two football pitches (main and upper stadiums), an eight-lane standard running track, two covered stands, and two open stands for spectators plus 56 corporate and family boxes, a medical centre, police unit, and two stand-by diesel-powered generators.
The stadium features two VVIP lounges and two VIP lounges, dressing rooms, fire event management rooms, and three management rooms among other utilities.
There are eight shopping spaces, a press briefing room and a press room. It also has an electronic scoring board and 400 parking spaces for vehicles.
Online Reporter