The Project Manager in charge of the upgrade of the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, Ibadan, Engineer Femi James has said that the stadium is ready for commissioning.
James, who is the Project manager of the company in charge of the project, Peculiar Ultimate Concerns Limited, said this on Tuesday shortly after the inspection of the facility by sports journalists.
Speaking with the journalists on the upgrade, he stated that the pitch, changing rooms, seats and many others are ready while other sporting facilities within the complex will be fully completed by December.
His words: “For the main bowl where we are right now, we are ready for commissioning. The pitch is ready. The changing rooms are ready. The seats are also ready as we can all see. So, we are set for the commissioning.
“For the remaining part of the project; the indoor sports or the courts, we are completing those ones on Saturday, 27th. And for the other places – the gymnasium, the courts, the indoor sports, the administrative blocks will also be completed by Saturday.
“When we came in, the main bowl where we are standing right now had an artificial turf, which is against the requirement of the FIFA. So, we are now putting in natural turf. The spectator stand of the main bowl also had no roof, but now, we have a roof over it. The tartan track was not also there when we came in, but we now have it here.
“Before now, the main bowl had just two changing rooms, which were not up to standard but, as we speak now, we have four large changing rooms. We have a studio and VAR room. These were not in place before.
“The indoor sports hall, administrative blocks are all being renovated. Their services were all gone but right now, their services have been put in place – windows, tiles, painting and the rest.
“We are also resurfacing the Tennis Court, Handball Court and other courts. Now, there are two new projects we are coming up with – the centre Court for Tennis, which was not in existence before. It is new construction. We also have a composite building, which houses wrestling, boxing, kick-boxing and gymnastic. It is totally a new project. The swimming pool we met on ground was not functional. We are constructing a new swimming pool entirely.
“Also, when we came in, the scoreboard we met on ground was not functioning. So, we have a brand new scoreboard. The floodlights we met on ground were not functioning. We have four new floodlights that we are just constructing also.
“Talking about the swimming pool, the popular sides were not covered. It was the VIP sections that were covered. But even the covering of the VIP section has been replaced.
“The Swimming pool is in existence but they do not meet the FIFA requirement. So, we are relocating the swimming pool completely. The site is not conducive, and then the swimming pool itself does not meet international standards.
“Where we had the swimming pool, we are bringing five aside and a multi-purpose outdoor court, which will serve handball, basketball, volleyball. It is going to be a multipurpose court. So, the existing stand there is going to be extended and we are going to construct a new stand to serve those new games that we are putting there.
“We are making a proposal for the contractor to stay back for about a year, for maintenance during which we would have trained in-house hands that will carry on from wherever we stop after that one year.
“This project cost about N5.3billon and we are commissioning this project on September 1 and, of course, after commissioning, we may still have one or two little things to touch here and there.
“But the official commissioning of the sports complex is coming up September 1. After the commissioning, the other places like the swimming pool, the training pitch, the multipurpose court will be commissioned by December. So, by December 2021, everything in the sports complex will be ready for use.”