Accra Sports Stadium back to life but…

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.