Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has assured of Federal Government's readiness to support states billed to host the forthcoming FIFA under-17 World cup scheduled for October this year with the ne-cessary logistics to ensure the success of the world tournament in the country.

The vice president gave the assurance in Bauchi yesterday in a brief chat with newsmen after inspecting sporting arena and facilities in the state to assess its level of preparedness to host the event preparatory to final inspection of the facilities by the world football governing body, FIFA.

Jonathan, who inspected the main bowl of the Abubakar Ta-fawa Balewa Stadium, sporting facilities of the Federal Poly-technic, Bauchi and Zaranda Hotel, where some of the spor-ting contingent would be hos-ted, expressed satisfaction with the level of preparation put in place.

Jonathan, who heads the Pre-sidential Monitoring Committee of the tournament, said the fede-ral government would give all necessary support to the 9 hosting states which include Kaduna , Kano , Bauchi, Delta, Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory , Abuja for the success of the tournament irrespective of whether the facilities belon-ged to the federal or state go-vernment.

Conducting the Vice Pre-sident round the facilities, the Bauchi state governor said though the state government was looking forward to the sup-port of the federal government in the preparations it will do anything within its ability to ensure the success of the event.

This is the second time Bauchi state is hosting an international football tourna-ment of this status in almost a decade after hosting the FIFA under-20 World Cup tourna-ment in 1999.

Meanwhile, the astro-turf project at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, will be ready in March, ahead of the FIFA U-17 World Cup in November.

Richard Ryan, Senior Project Manager, Deux Project Ltd., told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos that materials for the job arrived in the stadium on December 28.

"We have lost time due to the Christmas and New Year holi-days but we will make it up.

"If everything goes well, the surface should be ready in March," Ryan assured.

He said the digging of trenches round the main bowl, including laying of pipes and coverage with granite to forestall flooding would begin on Jan. 6.

The Manager said the 10 containers, nine of which were already at the stadium, were shipped from Germany.

Ryan said that installation of equipment had commenced and that a tractor for the maintenance of the facility pending the commencement of the championship had also arrived with the turf.

He said that stronger and tougher turf with harder blades would be used for the practice pitches at the Campos Square and Agege Stadium.