A CAF stadium inspector, Emmanuel Newton Dasoberi, believes the country needs experts and technocrats to manage stadiums ensure they meet the requirements of FIFA and the Confederation of African Football (CAF) matches.

According to Dasoberi, the National Sports Authority (NSA) which manages state-owned stadiums has failed to ensure that the country's stadia meet the standards of football regulatory bodies, FIFA and CAF.

Speaking with Graphic Sports, the CAF official stated that there must be a national dialogue on how best stadiums can be managed to meet the requirements set by the football regulatory bodies.

“We need a national dialogue on this matter. If we don’t agree as a nation that we do not have what it takes to host international matches, then we are going nowhere.”

“The long-term plan is to agree and prioritise whatever we need. We cannot say that we are going to renovate all the five. It is not possible to maintain five stadia at the level CAF or FIFA wants. We must agree as a long-term measure to get the experts involved, get a contractor like CAF has rightly mentioned, get the pitch experts, people who are seriously into construction to do the right thing,” Mr Dasoberi suggested last Friday.

“If we don’t turn to have the right management approach, nothing is going to work. We must, as a country, understand that things have changed. Football is changing and playing in a stadium is not only about the playing field,” he said.

Emmanuel Newton Dasoberi's statements come after CAF noted that the Cape Coast Stadium does not meet the standard to host the CAF Champions League.



Watch Sports Check with Ryan Bertrand



Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.

JNA/KPE