Bingu Stadium to open Dec

Bingu National Stadium in Lilongwe is finally set to open next month with a friendly football match between the Flames and a Chinese select team, the stadium’s officials have confirmed.

The official opening of the facility has been postponed several times but the stadium’s spokesperson Ireen Nkhokwe and operations manager Eric Ning’ang’a said yesterday things are finally in order.

The state-of-the-art stadium, constructed by a Chinese contractor to the tune of $70 million concessional loan Malawi government will pay back in 20 years, was initially planned to be up and running by November last year before the dates were shifted to March, June and October this year.

“I can comfortably say the Ministry [of Labour, Sports, Youth and Manpower Development] has instructed us to get everything ready for the launch in December. However, I cannot say the actual dates for the ceremony,” Nkhokwe said.

However, she said the launch match will take place in the afternoon and not in the evening as was recently indicated because work to make the facility operational in the evening is not fully complete.

Ning’ang’a concurred with Nkhokwe, saying government will live up to its promise of opening the facility this year.

“It has been planned to end this year on a very exciting note with the launch of the stadium. From then on, there will be nothing that will stop the facility from hosting various activities such as soccer matches, weddings and entertainment events,” he said.

Ministry of Labour, Sports, Youth and Manpower Development spokesperson Simon Mbvundula said such was the arrangement but they will have a meeting in the next few days to confirm the actual dates.

“The Chinese government proposed to come for the international friendly match on December 10. But as Malawi government, we are working on the logistics and we will confirm the dates soon,” Mbvundula said. n