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| The media stand of the renovated Accra Sports Stadium |
The number one stadium in the capital, the Accra Sports
Stadium was opened on Sunday evening after months of renovation that saw reconstruction
touches on practically every facet of the facility which last saw similar construction
works ten years ago.
There had been doubts as to whether the stadium will be ready
for the 2018 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations which kicks off in Ghana this weekend.
Having hosted the friendly match between the Black Queens of Ghana and the
Bayana Bayana of South Africa (beating them by a lone goal); it’s all right to
conclude that doubts over the readiness of the stadium have been dispelled.
My Observations
Going in to check on a number of things prior to the Ghana-South
Africa friendly, it came as a surprise to me that, the urinals and toilets at the
stadium were locked. There was no official to explain this. My plausible
assumption was that, they haven’t finished works there otherwise it made no
sense to me to have them shut that moment.
What caught the fascination of most journalists at the
stadium is the brilliant change at the media stand, where cubicles with swivel
chairs have been provided – a marked departure from the badly constructed yellow
wooden slabs that were there. While I appreciate the beauty of the cubicles, they
will be of little use because one can hardly see the pitch while in the cubicles.
The black swivel chairs are nice but the frontage of the cubicles
ought to be removed. It impedes viewing. You can’t see the pitch from the cubicle
even if you have good height like I do. Moving on to the scoreboard, it worked well
so as the floodlights. If they were put on test, then they passed the test.
The pitch wasn’t as green as seen in the pictures posted on the
Ministry of Youth and Sports’ Facebook page. The patches of brown and black – showing
black soil were obvious. I’m no technical person when it comes to managing
pitches but it seems to me that, the grass were mowed too low.
The stands looked fresh with their polished red and yellow
seats. The ripped ones are however yet to be replaced; there were noticeable empty
spaces. The spaces will later have their seats. The roofing (over the VIP and
media stands) that was visibly rusting have also been be changed and it looked
strong. Any frequent visitor to the stadium will see the transformational work.
Maintenance Culture
Fears are however strong that, we can’t keep the facility
from deteriorating in view of our poor maintenance culture, which saw us
leaving the stadium to ‘rot’ in the last decade. Why we will spend our scarce
financial resources on a stadium and leave it to ruins – with no proper care only
means that, we love to waste resources. That’s bad!
I can only hope that, this time, there will be proper management
of the facility as with time and usage, there will be wear and tear, which is
very normal. We don’t have to come back in the next few years to renovate the complete
structure. We’ve got to learn how to take proper care of things put in our
custody.
