The government is confident of meeting the 31 December deadline set by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to have both Kasarani Stadium and Nyayo Stadium ready to host the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN) tournament.Kenya is set to co-host the continental tourney from 1 to 28 February 2025 alongside; Uganda and Tanzania.While both Uganda and Tanzania have their host stadiums ready, Kenya is racing against time to have at least a single facility approved for the tournament.With the deadline a few days away and work at the two facilities yet to be completed, stakeholders are worried on Kenya will be ready to host the tournament.However, the government is promising to pull an engineering miracle by completing the works on time.##NAJAVA_MECA_8579433##“I want to assure CAF, and I want to assure Kenyans, that we will be ready to host CHAN. We are putting everything in place, we are burning the midnight oil and mobilizing all resources to ensure that we host CHAN next year. The government is committed to ensuring that this happens,” said outgoing Sports CS Kipchumba Murkomen in an interview with Telecomasia.Murkomen, who has since been moved to the Interior and National Administration docket, acknowledged the delay and disclosed that to beat the CAF deadline, the government will focus more on the important aspects while outsourcing others and also setting some for a later date.“It’s true, we have a lot of work to do and that is why this LOC has a very huge responsibility. Even if it means working night and day, we have to meet the obligations that have been set. What we are going to do, especially with Kasarani, is we will complete the crucial aspects of the facility like the playing surface, dressing room, and stands,” he said.President Ruto appoints new Sports Cabinet Secretary in minor cabinet reshuffleMurkomen said installing a modern sound system will most likely be done later.There are other aspects of the stadium, part of the recommendations by CAF, that we might not finish now and do later, but we can get alternatives, for example, sound.We have had meetings with the contractors and we have agreed that all of us are going to give a push for this thing to happen,” he explained.The former Transport CS also gave assurance that the financial requirements needed to complete the two stadiums would be met.“We have a steering committee that has representation from every arm of government, and the Sports Fund Board is also included. We are all aligned that we have to treat this as high priority and any funds that are needed will be available for work to go on and be completed,” he added.Meanwhile, Murkomen cited FKF elections for the delay in constituting and gazetting the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the CHAN and the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals.Latest update on Kasarani, Nyayo Stadia offer hope 12 days to CAF deadline [PHOTOS]“The LOC is extremely important because we need to move with speed to ensure that we are up and running. When we met with CAF representatives a few weeks ago, it was one of the things that we discussed and we needed to get it over the line.I had delayed constituting the LOC because of the challenges we had with the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) elections. But, it reached a point where it was no longer possible to delay and we had to gazette the LOC as soon as possible. It is our desire to make sure that the LOC supports the work that is already being done by the government to ensure that we are ready for CHAN,” he concluded.Kenya hopes to avoid a repeat of the shameful events of 2017 as CAF stripped the country of the rights to host the CHAN tournament due to a lack of ready stadia.
