Bingu Stadium against time

Bingu National Stadium faces a race against time to be certified fit to host the Flames matches ahead of the Ivory Coast 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) and 2023 Algeria Nations Championship (Chan) qualifers.

The 2023 Afcon qualifiers preliminary round will kick off next month, but Malawi will join the race in group stages in April, before 2023 Chan qualifiers start as well.

Having failed the last two Confederation of African Football (CAF) inspections in August and September and missed the October 2022 inspection, the next scheduled inspection will be a month before the qualifiers kick off.

But this puts Malawi in the same precarious situation where once the facility fails the inspection, there will be no time to fix the grey areas pointed out in CAF inspectors’ report.

Delays in completing renovations such as fixing advertising space, substandard technical benches for teams, changing rooms that do not fit international standards, unfurnished VIP area, broken lavatories and the pitch, led to the stadium to miss the inspection in October.

Football Association of Malawi (FAM) asked CAF to exclude the facility from the list of stadiums to undergo the inspection, saying ‘it did not want to be embarrassed again”.

Ministry of Youth and Sports finally finished the renovations way back in November 2022 after Treasury released K45 million funding for the facility.

FAM president Walter Nyamilandu said the association cannot wait until the scheduled CAF inspection.

“Now that Afcon is over, we are expecting to receive communication soon from CAF about the next inspection visit. We may have to remind them to come and inspect the Bingu Stadium,” he said, reminiscent of how CAF inspectors refused to give Malawi a chance to renovate the facility a month before Qatar World Cup qualifiers.

The association ended up paying a huge price as the Flames played their home qualifiers against Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Mozambique at Orlando Stadium in South Africa.

The stadium’s owners, City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality charged R158 000 (about K10 million) hiring fee per game.

This excluded Cosafa’s match administration fee which covered electricity, water, security, medics, ambulance, fire and Covid-19 preventive facilities.

Playing the Flames home matches outside the country also meant FAM spent about K27 million on air tickets and external allowances per match.

In total, FAM spent about K400 million on the Qatar World Cup qualifers which was double the original budget.

Apart from the monetary expenses, the Flames missed out on home ground advantage and only managed a 1-0 win over Mozambique in six matches.

Nyamilandu said this time around the association would ensure the Flames play at home.

He said: “Playing on a neutral venue is a non-starter and not in our plans. As far as we are concerned, Bingu Stadium is now ready to host international matches and it should be able to pass the test.

“We are looking at capitalising on home ground advantage so that we stand a good chance of qualifying for Chan and Afcon.”

Director of sports Jameson Ndalama said the ministry is waiting for FAM to advise on when the CAF inspectors will come.

He said: “We understand the inspectors have their own schedule on when to do the stadium inspection.

“As such, all we can to do is to maintain the stadium in good condition so that it is ready for the inspection at all times.”

Built between 2015 and 2016 using a Chinese government’s $70 million (about K50 billion) loan payable in 20 years, the facility was officially opened in 2017.

Though touted as capable of generating enough revenue, the 41 000-capcity stadium has struggled to be self-sustainable as envisaged by Ministry of Youth and Sports, posing serious questions on how the K50 billion loan will be paid back.

The management has struggled to pay for maintenance and utility bills for the structure, a development mostly attributed to lack of business due to high cost of hosting events.

The stadium was among eight others to have been banned for failing to make the grade following a CAF team’s inspection.