The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has granted FAZ a conditional approval to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifier against Congo Brazzaville at the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium in Ndola on November 17, 2023.
FAZ will need to work on the dressing rooms, playing field and substitute benches if the stadium is to be certified by CAF to host future Chipolopolo engagement.
FAZ General Secretary Reuben Kamanga confirmed the development in an interview with FAZ Media.
“CAF has not yet certified Levy Mwanawasa Stadium but they have allowed us to use it for the Upcoming game against Congo Brazzaville on 17th, A Friday and it will kick off around 18h00,” Kamanga said.
“I can confirm that we have conditional approval from CAF to use the Stadium however they expect us to work on all the issues they raised. The key issues being the state of the pitch, the dressing room which has received a reasonable amount of work during the last few months and we can agree that Ndola teams have not been allowed to use this pitch because we wanted it to be of a certain condition.
So the pitch is receiving attention and we hope that it will be certified to host this important encounter. One other area that was raised is the issue of substitutes benches which are almost being closed out.”
“So once we tick all those boxes, CAF will come back to do the certification and they will do a report on whether will be able to use the stadium for the upcoming fixtures but for this one CAF has been kind enough to allow us to use Levy Mwanawasa Stadium, so I can confirm here that we will use Levy Mwanawasa Stadium for the game against Congo Brazzaville,” he added.
Zambia hosts Congo Brazzaville on November 17 before facing Niger away four days later. Chipolopolo coach Avram Grant and his technical team will be getting to work in the next few days ahead of the back-to-back matches with the announcement of his squad expected this week.
I can breathe now. 3 points in the bag