MAVUSO, SOMHLOLO REMAIN BANNED BY CAF

MBABANE – The struggle continues for Eswatini.

This comes after the Confederation of African Football (CAF) excluded the country in the list of approved stadiums. The country had Somhlolo National Stadium and Mavuso Sports Centre that could be approved by CAF and non-of the two facilities met the requirements for now. Other Southern Africa countries that don’t have approved stadiums include Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, and Seychelles. Other countries are Chad, Central Africa, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Eretria, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Reunion, Sao Tome, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan and Zanzibar.

Approved

Countries like South Africa have 13 approved Stadiums and they are Soccer City Stadium (FNB Stadium) Johannesburg, Mbombela Stadium Nelspruit, Free State Stadium Bloemfontein/ Mangaung, Royal Bafokeng Stadium Rustenburg, Loftus Versfeld Stadium Pretoria, Moses Mabhida Stadium Durban, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium Port Elizabeth, Peter Mokaba Stadium Polokwane, Orlando Stadium Johannesburg, Moruleng Stadium, Lucas ‘Masterpieces’ Moripe Stadium in Pretoria, Dobsonville Stadium Pretoria and Cape Town Stadium.

Somhlolo National Stadium is currently under renovations after CAF banned the venue from hosting any of its events due to its bad state in 2019. The dressing rooms that irked CAF big time during the inspection in  2019 have already been upgraded and now the work is with the sports field and entrance to the dressing rooms. The country was temporarily allowed to host Guinea Bissau in the AFCON Qualifiers match on March 26, but CAF made it clear that it was for that match only and this simply means the ban continues. CAF banned Mavuso Sports Centre because it did not meet international standards in terms of the overall pitch conditions they wanted the grass to be improved; surface must be levelled, green and marked clearly in white.

Standard

Also, the current dressing rooms were said to not be up to the required standard according to CAF. Eswatini Football Association (EFA) Marketing and Communications Officer Muzi Radebe said he was not aware of the new memo. “Because there has been no inspection of stadiums of late, we are aware that no stadium was approved by CAF in the country as Mavuso was allowed to host only that AFCON qualifier match in March,” he said.

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