By Makutu Manneh
Bakary Badjie, the minister of youth and sports, said the remaining work at Independence Stadium is no longer focused on renovations but on how the facility will operate during international matches, following provisional approval from the Confederation of African Football.
“CAF is not very specific in terms of what needs to be done to get the full approval,” Badjie said. “What they say is that they will now wait for a technical report that will be coming post-match and what they call ‘match-day operations.’”
Speaking to GRTS after three years of renovation work at the stadium, Badjie said the provisional clearance represented the approval the government had been seeking and marked a shift from construction to the practical demands of hosting matches.
Those demands, he said, include security, crowd control, and managing entrances and exits. Stadium officials will also have to operate newly installed equipment, including a scoreboard, a public address system, and an emergency override system during international matches.
“The approval is a sign of relief for us at the ministry, the president, and Gambians who have been waiting for so long to be able to get our stadium open and get our international matches back home,” Badjie said.
The minister also said spectators would be required to park their vehicles at least 500 meters from the stadium on match days. While international standards generally require parking to be kept about a mile from a stadium, he said, the location of Independence Stadium makes that distance impractical, prompting officials to reduce it to 500 meters.
Badjie thanked President Adama Barrow for supporting the project through years of delays and urged football fans to prepare to buy tickets and turn out in support of the national team when international football returns to the stadium in September.
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