REVEALED: Find out the reasons why the Baba Yara Stadium has been rejected by CAF;

The Ghana Football Association (GFA) announced last Tuesday that, the Baba Yara Stadium has been rejected to host senior grade A matches, according to a communique they received from the Confederation of African football.

Ghana just recently were drawn in Group E alongside Madagascar, Angola and Central African Republic in the 2023 AFCON qualifiers and this means these matches will not be able to take in Kumasi until the venue is rehabilitated to meet the CAF standard.

However, it was given the permission just last month to host the World Cup qualifiers playoffs against Nigeria but has now been taken out of the list as an international venue to host top level football.

With this, we bring to you some of the main reasons why the venue has been declared unfit;

-The field of play is full green especially from the far range however, it has some few weeds and a lot of debris. Needs raking to remove debris and make room for more healthy grass to pop up so as to maintain the full green grass.

-Team technical benches must be increased to (21) seats each side.

-The referees’ bench is not up to international standards. Need to install standard referees’ benches like the teams’ technical benches.

-The intensity of floodlighting is below the minimum CAF requirement (1200 LUX).

-The main team dressing rooms have 22 seats each but more 5 seats have been placed around the route/pathway to the main changing rooms to an extent that the 5 players at the pathway hardly see the other players and coaches.

-Reorganize the dressing rooms by removing some of the walls/blocks in the area in order to have one single orderly room.

-There is need to increase the number of toilets in the players rooms from 2 to 5 (Can reduce on the washrooms since each dressing room has 12 shower rooms).

-The meeting room is not set to international standard. There is a need to organise and provide enough up to standard seats and tables in the meeting room to meet the international standard.

-Equip the referees’ dressing room with all the necessary materials and equipments as per international standards.
Stabilize water supply for the whole stadium.

-Existent doping room is not up to the required standards. The doping room appears to be temporally set with office chairs and temporally separation of the doping officers’ room and the waiting room. There is a need to set up a permanent well-quipped doping room.
Some of the sanitary facilities for fans are in a bad state.

-Pathways for persons with disabilities should have signage to avoid being inconvenienced by other persons.

-The press conference room is temporary organised (all seats, podium, PAS and table are temporary arranged) and not up to CAF stadium standards. Need to permanently set up a modern standard press conference room.

-The media Centre must be improved to meet all the CAF requirements.
The media tribune must be improved to meet all the CAF requirements.

-There is need to permanently set up the Photographers’ areas behind the goals.

-Commentary box area not up to the CAF requirements. The is need to enclose the commentary area to limit interferences from the fans and guests as they get to the VIP & VVIP areas.

-The stadium is not equipped with modern electronic access controls

-The Venue Operations Centre (VOC) is not up to the required standards. It must be completely renovated, and installation of modern electronic equipment is required.