BCC needs US$10 million for Barbourfields Stadium

Source: BCC needs US$10 million for Barbourfields Stadium | The Sunday News

Farai Jere

Loveore Dube, Zimpapers Sports Hub

BULAWAYO City Council needs US$10 million to bring Barbourfields Stadium to a state in which it could host international matches.

This was revealed by a senior city council official, Thembinkosi Ncube at the end of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sport tour of facilities around the country.

The tour ended yesterday with the legislators meeting the councillors before undertaking a tour of the facility, which is one of three, Portfolio chairman Farai Jere said the Government is prioritising and wants to see play host to international matches soon.

Zimbabwe’s senior men’s national team will play a round of Group C World Cup qualifiers in September and hopes are that by then the local authority would be done with refurbishments.
Barbourfields Stadium is a priority according to Jere.

In recommendations made by Caf inspectors, Zimbabwe saw three stadia, Barbourfields, Rufaro and the National Sports

Stadium deemed not good enough for international matches, three years ago.
Zimbabwe has since then been playing its home matches elsewhere in Africa.

Ncube told the Committee that costs for the refurbishments of Barbourfields Stadium and Luveve have been estimated at US$10 million.

He said while improvements to meet the standards would chew most of the money, Luveve as a practice venue for international teams, needed sprucing up.

He said it lay on the prescribed distance from hotels as required by Caf and Fifa.
Among some of the items to be attended to at Barbourfields were turnstiles, CCTV, lighting, search points and bucket seats.
“Among some of the things to do are internal and external CCTV system, with the lighting system inside the facility attended to.

The lighting system needs a backup generator or backup power system that is separate from the floodlights. Turnstiles and stadium stairs: we need to supply and fix turnstiles, which link to the venue, the operations centre.We need more search bays, which are not within the stadium perimeter, those all need to be electronically managed and have an override system and digital counters so that we can manage the capacity of the stadium. Zoning and numbering: each needs to be linked to the venue operations centre,” said Ncube.

To be attended are camera positions as what obtains now does not meet Fifa expectations.
“We need camera positions for our media, there are specifics that Fifa gave us, which we have designed. Roads and civil works on all roads that lead to the stadium and out, need to be of a certain minimum condition, street lights need to be done, traffic sites need to be done as well as parking. We need a designated amount of parking, which is off-site from the stadium.

We have a site that we identified but it needs civil works, these are our short-term targets. In our medium-term targets, we are looking at the upgrade of Luveve Stadium as a training venue so that we have instead of teams practicing onsite, we can have them offsite and Luveve is within the prescribed proximity to hotels that Fifa requires,” said Ncube.

Ncube concluded by saying: “We need an upgrade to the stadium lights, pitch, security and change rooms at Luveve, we also need a scoreboard and a digital screen, both here (Barbourfields Stadium) and Luveve Stadium,” said Ncube.
Jere said they were not in Bulawayo to prescribe solutions but were merely getting an appreciation and recommend to the Government at policy level.

“The committee can come in, the Government from a policy perspective can assist you to make sure that the President’s Vision 2030 is achieved where in NDS1 sport is one of the key result areas. The third objective is to evaluate the implementation of Government policies and programmes related to sports infrastructure. The fourth, which is the last objective is to engage with key stakeholders to find lasting solutions to improve facility management and funds,” said Jere.

The chairman said the engulfing picture of the state of facilities was that their condition is deplorable, which he said to rectify, needed local authorities, Government and communities to work together to improve or maintain.