Daily Independent (Lagos)
Bassey Inyang
20 November 2008
Calabar — The Cross River State Government has earmarked N1 billion for the FIFA U-17 World Cup billed for Nigeria in 2009.
The amount will be for the upgrading of facilities at the U. J. Esuene stadium, the General Hospital Calabar and other facilities.
The State Governor, Mr. Liyel Imoke who announced this while presenting the state's 2009 budget to the State House of Assembly said government was making adequate preparations to ensure that the stadium and other facilities that will be used for the staging of the championship were in the best of shapes.
It would be recalled that when the FIFA Inspection Team visited Nigeria earlier in the year, the Vice President of FIFA, Mr. Jack Warner said the U.J. Esuene International Stadium in Calabar, has remained the only stadium with improved facilities out of the six stadia expected to host the cadet tournament.
Warner said the stadium, the hotels, hospitals and the general environment was in order. Warner said he was impressed with the standard of preparation displayed by the State Government and its Local Organizing Committee (LOC) and thanked Imoke for keeping faith with FIFA by ensuring that Calabar and Nigeria can host the tournament. Warner said he visited Calabar in 1998 to inspect facilities at the U.J. Esuene Stadium prior to the 1999 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Nigeria and what he saw then was impressive. However, he said his second visit revealed that facilities at the stadium are still well maintained, the town peaceful and clean.
In a related development, Imoke said the sum of N1, 715,859,880 has been provided in the budget to address the challenges of youth development and sports.
Imoke said provision has been made to commence the development of the stadia in Ogoja and Ikom in order to boost sporting activities in other areas of the state that are in serious need of sporting facilities.
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