Government will build a Stadium from scratch in Livingstone to boost the country’s chances of hosting the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.
The Football Association of Zambia President Andrew Kamanga confirmed the development in his weekly update.
The quartet comprising Tariq Ashraf, Mouhsine Aguedach, Antoine Bergue and Mohammed Sedat arrived in the country on Friday afternoon and immediately got down to business.
“We had a team of inspectors from CAF checking on some of the facilities in our 2025 AFCON bid. The CAF inspectors inspected facilities in Lusaka and the Copperbelt. Among the facilities inspected were National Heroes, Nkoloma, Levy Mwanawasa and Nkana stadia. CAF also had an eye on other support facilities for the 2025 AFCON bid. With the AFCON set for June 2025, we believe that with the government support we are enjoying and also the fact that Southern Africa has not hosted since 2013 it will boost our chances,” Kamanga wrote.
“Some infrastructure is earmarked for upgrade while the government has committed to building a stadium from scratch in Livingstone. Government had representation on the host support team to ensure that they have an appreciation of what needs to be done to actualize the bid. For the record the full list of bidders has Algeria, Morocco, Benin/Nigeria (joint bid) and Zambia. We will keep the nation updated on how this important process goes.”
Zambia has joined three other bidders for the 2025 AFCON that was initially given to Guinea before CAF stripped it of the rights after failure to meet several guarantees.
Other bidders for the 2025 AFCON are Morocco, Algeria and a joint bid by Nigeria and Benin.
Successful bidders are expected to be named next month.
Despite having appeared at the AFCON 17 times and won it once, Zambia has never hosted the prestigious tournament.
In 2017 Zambia successfully hosted the Under-20 AFCON that was won by Beston Chambeshi’s Bola Na Lesa driven squad.
Inviting CAF inspection team to see 2 eye sore stadia of Arthur Davies And Nkholoma stadiums. This is rediculous. We need 2 more and bigger stadias in Livingstone to attract Bostwana, Namibia, Zimbabwe And Tourists. In solwezi to woo fans from Congo, Angola and miners. Not this circus were seeing.
Sickening, when we don’t even have roads joining some provinces to the capital. Our provincial roads have disintegrated. Zambia should not just be Lusaka!
The move is great
It’s the minster of football, Elvis Nkandu, behind all this embarrassment! CAF don’t have time for more experiments! Guinea has just failed there’s no time for more experiments, 2025 is just around the corner, they want a country like Morocco which has already got all the infrastructure in place! Not going to build stadia. Does Zambia have the money. If it’s a loan from USA, Hichilema’s closest friends, you will not get. If it’s China, by the time you mend broken relations it will 2025! Does Nkandu know how long it takes to build a modern stadium. Please Kamanga talk to the man sincerely. Remind him building a stadium is not like building Chisokone market in Kitwe which is still an eye sore up to now! Kamanga stop the nonsense! Nkana and Nkoloma stadia are not stadia you can use for Africa cup, they are too small and eye sores. Even the road network is not there! Please plan for 2029!
We had the stadia which were funded by FIFA and how far have they gone in terms of completion and one of the stadium in Livingstone was ear marked to benefit from the same funding.