AFCON 2023: why the infrastructure has not yet been handed over

A hiccup, but nothing to be alarmed about. Ivory Coast did not hand the keys to the AFCON 2023 stadiums to CAF on 30 June as promised. Even so, the country's sporting and political authorities are not concerned and continue to work flat out to put the finishing touches to these almost completed gems. The stadiums have not been handed over because a good number of them have yet to be approved.

Four stadiums still to be tested

The stadiums in Yamoussoukro and Bouaké were approved, respectively, on 3 June 2022, with the Ivory Coast-Zambia match (1st qualifying matchday), and on 24 March 2023, with Ivory Coast-Comoros (3rd qualifying matchday). That is not the case for the other four venues: the Ebimpé stadium, closed for two years for work on the pitch, those in San Pedro and Korhogo, and the Félix Houphouët-Boigny stadium in Abidjan-Plateau, nicknamed "Félicia", none of which is fully ready yet.

The Ivorian Football Federation (FIF), in agreement with the national sports office (ONS), the National Bureau of Technical Studies and Development (Bnetd) and the Cocan, plans to test them in the coming months. The Korhogo stadium will be tested with the final matchday of AFCON 2023 qualifying against Lesotho in September. Ebimpé and Félicia will be tested against Morocco and another nation in friendlies in October. San Pedro "will probably be approved after a league match in September, when Ligue 1 resumes", according to a source close to the FIF.

What still needs doing at these stadiums

According to Ivorian sports officials, there is not much left to do on the playing surfaces. To find out more, Sport News Africa spoke to the ONS director on Monday 3 July 2023. "We were due to be ready on 30 June but the rain forced us to rethink everything. However, we are not worried because CAF has been omnipresent in Abidjan for months. Pitch experts and others are even arriving again tonight (Monday into Tuesday 4 July, editor's note) to make sure everything is fine. We still have four stadiums to get approved. Obviously we could not hand them over before testing them. Do you understand? I can assure you there is not much left to do on any of these pitches. Planting, industrial washing, paving, in short, only small things remain. One thing is certain: we will be ready on time", Mariam Yoda told us, before dismissing out of hand talk of any supposed approval at CAF's upcoming general assembly, scheduled for this July in Abidjan.

"The CAF is coming for its general assembly regardless of the infrastructure work. What's more, we are not responsible for the other infrastructure, namely the roads and hospitals. It's true that it's a package for AFCON 2023 and that it would be ideal to deliver everything at the same time, but related bodies are handling those. We don't get involved in that. Our stadiums will be OK, with lovely pitches ", she concluded.

Another source says what Ivory Coast is achieving is enormous in terms of performance. "I believe that, with the budget invested in this work, more than 760 million euros, it is clear that nobody in sub-Saharan Africa will do better in future. A single country will no longer host this competition alone because the demands of CAF and FIFA are such that the financial, material and human resources required are colossal. It will be difficult for one nation to bear all of that from now on", our contact within the Ivorian government says. Clearly, Ivory Coast is up and running and nothing seems likely to halt its march towards the "chocolate AFCON " scheduled for January 2024.

Sanh Séverin