By ZBC Reporter
THE National Sports stadium is set for another major facelift to meet the required international standards after the government settled for a local manufacturer to supply bucket seats.
The refurbishment of the National Sports Stadium to meet the required international standards goes a gear up with the next stage being the installation of bucket seats.
This was confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Honourable Tino Machakaire during a tour of the facility in Harare this Monday where he also announced that government has settled for a local manufacturer to supply the bucket seats.
Honourable Machakaire said the procurement department in his Ministry is finalising the tender process to meet the March deadline set by the Confederation of African football-CAF.
“We are very happy with the progress so far. However, we are now looking at the procurement of bucket seats locally since the movement and shipment of items is hindered by the COVID-19 outbreak. CAF officials came and inspected the facility last week and they were quite impressed, but we are pushing to see if we can meet the initial March deadline but it all depends with the COVID situation,” he said.
The Deputy Minister also hinted on the systems that will be put in place to monetize the game since sport has now turned into big business globally.
“We are trying to work on plans and systems to ensure that we turn to sport and these facilities to generate income so that players and athletes will have a fallback plan when such situations (disasters, pandemics) strike. Sport has now become big business and athletes survive from it, hence the plan,” he said.
The National Sports Stadium is the only facility which has been given a reprieve by CAF to host international matches at least for now since there will no spectators.
Zimbabwean Champions FC Platinum who have been using the facility for their Continental club matches will host another international assignment at the venue when they play ASC Jaraaf of Senegal in a CAF Confederation cup encounter on the 14th of this month.
Meanwhile, CAF officials inspected the facility last week and are yet to release the report on their findings.
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