Six Bid For Stadia Projects

Six international companies have applied to construct stadia in the country towards Ghana?s hosting of CAN 2008.

But the selection of any of those companies for the job would be after the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports open procedures for bidding for the Nations Cup projects.

Those projects include new 20,000-seater stadia at Sekondi and Tamale, renovation of the Accra and Kumasi stadia, and construction of games villages at the hosting cities. The four cities are billed to host the biggest continental football event in 2008.

Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, the sector minister, told the Graphic in Accra yesterday after chairing a news conference that revealed the strategy that won Ghana CAN 2008 host rights that preparations for the event would begin formally in the next two weeks with the formation of a Games Organising Committee.

That committee, he said, would replace the Bid Committee that had existed over the last two years. The Bid Committee will, however, be dissolved after winding up its business.

The Committee was formed under the direction of former sector minister, Mr Edward Osei Kwaku, with a mandate to win the right to host the 2008 Nations Cup. Ghana won the bid from only rivals, Libya, after 2010 World Cup hosts, South Africa, pulled out of the Nations Cup hosting contest.

The Minister said the Organising Committee would be assisted by City Committees, which would be made up of experts and relevant natives of the hosting cities. These would include past footballers and coaches, whose experience of past Nations Cup the football authorities find important in ensuring a showpiece tournament.