The minister of youths and sports development, Mr Sunday Dare has revealed that Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote is set to renovate the Main Bowl of the MKO Abiola National Stadium in Abuja.
Dare said the renovation would include just the football pitch, light and scoreboard at the stadium.
According to him, work would begin in the next two weeks.
“Yes, Abuja is coming back up,” he said.
“Already we have gotten Dangote, I can say that he has agreed to bring back the Abuja football pitch, the light and scoreboard. Work will start in another one week or two weeks.
“And we will use the same model, we will adopt the pitch model for several of our stadia. At least, the three other big ones.
“We are looking at between now and March, we should have four big stadia, football pitches, FIFA standard.
“And I think if given time, within a year, this country should be ready to host any FIFA soccer tournaments.”
It would be recalled that 60,000 capacity stadium was built in 2003 during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration and over the years, the national edifice began to waste away.
The last major sporting event held at the stadium was the National Sports Festival held last year December while the last competitive football game was on April 12, 2016 which was the 2nd leg of the Africa Women’s Cup of Nations qualifier between the Super Falcons of Nigeria and Senegal.
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