Tamale Stadium: Neat and well managed

The Tamale Sports Stadium remains perhaps the best sporting legacy bequeathed to the city which has produced some of Ghana’s finest footballers, notably Abedi Pele and other sporting greats.

As a new stadium built as one of the venues for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations and designed for multi-sport events, the stadium is one of the most imposing landmarks in the city with a seating capacity of 20,235. 

For good reasons the facility has built a reputation as not only the neatest stadium in the country but perhaps the best managed of the CAN 2008 stadia as most of its facilities are as new as they were when the stadium was commissioned for the Nations Cup seven years ago.

Until recently a Premier League venue when ‘Pride of the North’ Real Tamale United (RTU) was in the elite competition, the Tamale stadium has lately been home to a number of international football matches, particularly the All Africa Games final qualifier between the Black Meteors and the Mambas of Mozambique last Sunday and some key qualifying matches involving the Black Stars for the 2015 AFCON.

The Tamale stadium has not been as busy as the other CAN 2008 venues, thus ensuring the facilities remain in good condition as was observed during a tour by the Daily Graphic last week. 

The scoreboard, elevator, PA systems, flood lights are functional, in addition to good management by the Northern Regional Sports Director, Mr John Bosco Abase, which has ensured facilities such as the football field, conference rooms, lavatories and athletics tracks remain in good condition and in readiness to host any major competition.

Maintenance culture

Mr Abase told the Daily Graphic his outfit had managed to maintain the facilities in good condition using internal generated funds and with support from the Volta River Authority (VRA) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).

Generally, the management of the Tamale Stadium have raised funds from their 10 per cent share of gate proceeds during league games and national team matches as well as renting out their conference halls for other non-sporting events.

"Even as I am speaking to you the Tamale Stadium would host the return leg of the All African Games qualifiers between the Black Meteors and their Mozambique counterparts on Sunday,” he said in an interview last week.

In spite of the impressive state of the stadium, Mr Abase said there were leakages in the roof of the stadium, with water dripping from the roof anytime it rains.

“The repair works on the roof is beyond us and, therefore, we have included it in our report to the National Sports Authority (NSA), the managers of the facility.”

The stadium was designed to include a 40-room hostel and a restaurant which are 55 per cent complete and require massive investment to complete.

Future plans

Mr Abase noted that his outfit had not been able to complete the hostel and restaurant project because they were capital intensive and needed private investors, hence the management of the stadium was exploring the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative to get a strategic partner to complete the two projects in order to put them to commercial use to generate other streams of revenue.