Moshood Abiola Stadium will be ready to host Eagles- Sports Minister

In his first official inspection of the Moshood Abiola Stadium yesterday, the newly appointed Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Sunday Dare has promised to renovate the Stadium’s pitch to enable it to host future Super Eagles matches and other international matches of that magnitude.

The Minister was, however, cautious not to mention the time frame as a result of funding difficulties. He also praised the work done by his predecessor to maintain the facilities he met on ground tagging it as 90 percent functional.

“Against the general perception that this place (Moshood Abiola Stadium) was under total disrepair and non-functional, what I have seen here is that this place is functional up to almost 90 percent which is impressive.
“I have seen that in the last several months since the beginning of the year a lot of works have been done here. There is ongoing work. (Right now) we are standing in the velodrome, only South Africa has this type of velodrome and it is one of the best in Africa. It is fully functional. Competition was just held here in July which was an African event.
“I think what I have seen here is impressive. This facility is first class and Nigeria and Nigerians should be proud of the facility. What we intend to do is to bring it up to 100 percent usage and capacity.
“You can see that the culture of maintenance has already gained ground here that would be ratcheted up to make sure that we maintain not just the velodrome, and the pitch for instance before the end of this year barring any funding constraints, the pitch will be fully ready and other facilities are already on the ground. I am happy that this is up to speed right now.
“First you know that there have been funding challenges. Apart from the moment, the last batch of ministers exited out we also had some form of delay.
“I have just been sworn in as minister just 78 hours ago. I have been briefed and base on the briefing I have received, I have prioritised coming to Abuja that is the MKO Abiola Stadium as recently named Stadium, baring any funding difficulty, and we are going to be innovative in trying to see how we can get extra funding.
“We are going to prioritise the (Abuja Stadium) football pitch. I don’t want to put a time lag but it will be sufficient to say that it is right at the top of the agenda because we know it will take some time. Nigerians are interested and want these (Super Eagles) matches to be played there (Abuja). It will be ready soon”, Dare disclosed to SportingLife.ng shortly after the inspection.