Ivory Coast: Ebimpé Stadium, a renovation to 20 billion CFA francs
Ebimpé Stadium will undergo further renovation work@ Copyright Africanews24
Before the Senate, the Minister of Sports of Côte d’Ivoire, Paulin Claude Danho, validated the funding necessary for the renovation of the Ebimpé Stadium. The sports venue was inaugurated a little over a year ago and must undergo renovations to meet FIFA standards. The cost of the work is 20 billion CFA francs, a sum that makes people cringe.
Faced with the outcry created, and less than two years before CAN 2023, the Ivorian authorities reacted. Before the members of the Senate’s Economic and Financial Affairs Committee, the Ivorian Minister of Sports defended and obtained a financing budget necessary for the upgrading. An additional extension of 20 billion CFA francs (or 30 million euros), which will bring the total cost of the Ebimpé Stadium to 163 billion CFA francs (about 250 million euros).
“ This amount is due to the fact that we have taken the decision to completely redo the lawn to international standards with new processes in order to have a hybrid lawn, both synthetic and natural. We will therefore be one of the few stadiums in Africa to have this arrangement of lawns. In addition, after the lawn other works have been listed in order to have a stadium that will have nothing to envy to the major stadiums in the world ”, justified the Minister of Sports.
But faced with the final amount, the criticisms were quick to fuse. The Ivorian opposition indicating in particular that such an amount could have been used for something other than the renovation of a recently built stadium. The example of the Ebimpé stadium being the opportunity for her to point out an absence of vision and sports policy. Local authorities now want to move quickly to quickly see this file closed. The work is expected to last three months. This would allow Côte d’Ivoire to play again at home during the international break in March.Ebimpé, a total cost of 163 billion.
