Monica Iheakam
Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere and the Onikan Stadium may play hosts to matches during the 2020 FIFA women’s World cup, if Nigeria bid to host the biennial tournament scales through.
Coordinator of Nigeria’s bid for the global Mundial, Mainasara Illo disclosed this during the inspection of facilities by FIFA inspection team currently in the country to asses the Stadia proposed for the competition.
Speaking after they completed an inspection of the Teslim Blowgun Stadium, Illo disclosed that because of the level of the infrastructure in the city, Lagos is being considered to have two match venues .
“Lagos is likely to have two centres, one on the Island and the other one on the Mainland.
“ Also, we have the commensurate facilities in other technical areas, like hospitals and hotels. We have them on the Island and the Mainland.
“we will have a centre each in Benin, Asaba and Uyo.Kaduna has been under consderatio for some time but some of the events of the last few days , including the problem we had at the Aiteo Cup final have stepped down consideration for Kaduna at this inspection but we have continued with the work to upgrade facilities in Kaduna with the hope that we will visit the state at the next inspection.
Illo went further to explain that popularity of women football in the areas concerned , as well as the availability of basic facilities and support from the state governments are key to the project. “We have had about seven or eight things to consider, the ability to fill the stadium and whether the area is market savvy , the convenience of providing and managing a compact event for FIFA are the key points we put into consideration before deciding on the venues.
“FIFA has a standard. We had to submit a bid document 968 pages long and we made a lot of work both in substance and in academics.
“FIFA went through everything before deciding that Nigeria has a competent bid and that we qualified for for an inspection like this.