Yanga set to start construction of own top class stadium

Dar es Salaam. The Young Africans leadership are in the final stage of embarking on construction of own state of the art stadium including a training center, starting June, this year, in the Kigamboni area in Dar es Salaam.

The club’s Building and Infrastructure Committee secretary-general, Saidi Mrisho, told The Citizen yesterday that the stadium will also have a gym, a 50m Olympic status swimming pool, sauna and other training facilities.

Mrisho said a 20,000 capacity seater stadium will also have volleyball and basketball courts for both training and matches of teams interested in camping at their training centre to be known as the Kigamboni Sports Complex and Home of Champions.

He said they earlier planned to rebuild their Kaunda Stadium, but the plan was dropped to pave the way for another government project in the Jangwani area.

“We have seven acres at Kigamboni, which, however, are not enough as we planned to build the biggest stadium in the country with a hostel, canteen and restaurant,” said Mrisho.

However, he explained that the government’s envisaged project at Jangwani would give them a clear picture of how they could develop their area.

“Basically, we have decided to build two stadiums in Kigamboni, one for training and another for handling international matches as per the requirements of the Confederation of African Football (Caf) and the world’s soccer governing body (Fifa),” said Mrisho.

According to Mrisho, the funding of the project is under the club leadership as the land use master plan has been completed by professionals forming the committee.

“I cannot unveil the budget of the project because it is at the management level. Our task is to plan and evaluate the project and submit our recommendations to the leadership.

“However, let me assure you that the project will be implemented as planned and history would be made in the country,” he said.

“We visited and viewed the Azam Complex, where we learnt a lot of things about how we can construct ours. We are aware of the challenges they are facing and how to address them. We really thank Azam for their cooperation,” he said.