The people of Ivory Coast are still celebrating their team’s 2-1 triumph in the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) final against Nigeria. But disillusionment could quickly follow. As soon as the celebrations of winning the major event in your own country are over, one question will come to the fore: What will happen to the new football stadiums that were built especially for the AFCON?
Ivory Coast, the world’s largest cocoa producer, has invested more than a billion US dollars (almost 930 million euros) to make the stadiums, roads, hotels and other facilities in the West African country fit for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. With the support of Chinese investors and construction companies, four new stadiums were built: the Alassane Quattara Stadium in the capital Abidjan (60,000 spectators), which also hosted the final, as well as the stadiums in San Pedro (20,000 seats), Yamoussoukro (20 , 000) and Korhogo (20,000).
The AFCON hosts want the Ivory Coast stadiums to be spared the fate of other African football arenas that were left to fall into disrepair after major events. “Ivory Coast is becoming a hub [für den Fußball – Anm. d. Red.] in the West Africa region,” announces Idris Diallo, President of the national football association FIF. “All countries in the region that have no [für internationale Spiele] Approved stadiums are welcome.” This may work occasionally, but it is not a sustainable plan to keep the stadiums open all year round.
The legacy of the abandoned stadiums
Since the Africa Cup was increased from 16 to 24 teams in 2019, the African Football Association CAF has now required the organizers to have six stadiums in which games can be played according to international standards instead of the previous four. As is now the case in Ivory Coast, four new arenas were also built in Cameroon, the host country of AFCON 2022. Afterwards they were hardly used to capacity. “It is important to have a plan for how the infrastructure will be used after the event, Adedamilola Adedotun of the sports management agency Temple Company in the Nigerian capital Lagos told DW. “And that is the point at which African host countries have difficulties.”
In Cameroon, stadiums were placed under the care of the National Office of Sports Infrastructure and Equipment (ONIES) to ensure that the arenas were adequately used after the Africa Cup of Nations. But the Football Association of Cameroon and the government authority argued over the usage fees. The reason: The stadiums, with a capacity of up to 40,000 seats, were oversized for games at a national level.
Dilapidated AFCON stadium in Ghana
A cautionary example is the Essipong Stadium in Sekondi, Ghana’s second largest city. The stadium was built for the 2008 AFCON. The cost: around 40 million dollars (37 million euros). Today the arena has fallen into disrepair. The roof is broken, the lawn is no longer playable, the toilets are broken. The Ghanaian government has said it needs around $3 million to repair the stadium.
“Keeping infrastructure in good condition is a full-time job. Awareness must be created for this. And investments must be made regularly so that a building lasts for a long time,” says Mohsen Abdel Fattah, managing director of the African Sports & Creative Institute in Johannesburg, an African think tank Sports industry.
African Stadiums 2.0
The biggest club in the country of AFCON winner Ivory Coast is ASEC Mimosas. It plays its home games in the African Champions League in the 33,000-seat Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan. But the stadium is rarely even half full.
“We need to think about a 2.0 model for African stadiums,” says Reda Laraichi of Rainbow Sports Global, a Paris-based sports company that does business in Africa. “You should build stadiums that can be enlarged or reduced as needed. That would reduce maintenance costs.”
Future means co-host
The next host of the Africa Cup of Nations does not have these problems. Morocco, the 2025 AFCON host, is among the leading African nations in terms of football infrastructure and has no problem providing six stadiums that meet international standards. The 2027 Africa Cup will then break new ground: the East African countries Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda will share the host role.
Such a model is known in football from world and European championships. “It makes more sense to host together and share the costs and investments,” says South African expert Abdel Fateh. “If the Europeans and the Americans do it, the Africans should do it too – even if we have our own specific challenges.”
The article was adapted from English.