By Michael Tapeng
The Federation of International Football Association has announced plans to inaugurate the main football stadium in South Sudan, Juba National Stadium in early 2022.
The stadium is under repair with expansions, funded by FIFA.
The Secretary General of the world footballing body, Fatma Samba Diouf Samoura arrived in the country over the weekend and inspected the construction work.
“The work is progressing and hopefully the Juba National Football Stadium rehabilitation work will be completed by the end of 2021 so that we can officially inaugurate it in 2022,” Samoura told reporters during the inspection.
“The Juba National stadium is of critical importance because it is the only one that will be able to host international and continental football matches in 2022,” she said.
“So, the sooner we finish, the better it is for all football lovers.”
Samoura said FIFA has plans to improve football infrastructure in South Sudan through upgrading more facilities to international standards.
The President for the South Sudan Football Association Augustino Maduot Parek hailed Samoura’s visit as historic.
“In these two days visit, we have discussed a number of issues in which one of them is to see and inspect the Juba Football Stadium and to see how it can be accelerated to finish so that we can play in it,” Parek said.
