Abdulraheem Aodu and Murjanatu M. Abba
13 January 2009
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan has expressed his happiness at the state of preparedness of all the venues slated for the 2009 U-17 FIFA World Cup tagged Nigeria 2009.
He noted that out of the nine venues scheduled for the fiesta, Kaduna leads in terms of readiness and preparedness.
Speaking at the end of his tour of all the venues for the World Cup, which had taken him to Abuja, Warri, Calabar, Enugu, Bauchi, Kano, Ijebu Ode, Lagos before Kaduna, Vice President Jonathan said he is impressed with the commitment of the various state governments and the quality of facilities slated for the tournament. He however added that FIFA will be the one to pick between six and nine stadia that would host the World Cup out of the nine provided by Nigeria.
He said, "Though we are not FIFA and we cannot select stadia for the U-17 World Cup but we can talk about the quality of work and state of prepared-ness of the host states. I'm quite impressed with Kaduna for a state hosting the National Sports Festival, they have ad-vantage to host the World Cup and the state government is committed. In terms of readiness and preparedness Kaduna Sta-te will take number one among all the nine hosting states pos-sibly because they have head start over the rest. Some venues just ordered the surface material for their stadia, which are yet to be laid.
"FIFA team will be in Nigeria with 18 professionals from Ja-nuary 25 on final inspection tour of the facilities. They would ins-pect stadia, medical, hotel and ac-commodation as well as media facilities and others before deci-ding on which facilities would host the fiesta. We would be hap-py if they take all the nine venues slated for the World Cup because that would spread the game around and provide more people the opportunity of watching and being part of the tournament and the LOC is ready to provide the logistics involved in moving pla-yers and officials from one venue to the other."
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