Kenya has been racing against time over the past year to have all facilities ready for the 2024 African Nations Championship (Chan) that kicks off on August 2.
The country will host the biennial continental football bonanza jointly with Uganda and Tanzania.
After several missteps and plenty of anxiety, it was only early this month that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) finally gave Kenya’s facilities the thumbs up to host the 19-team tournament after conducting a final inspection of all the designated match and training venues.
President William Ruto kicks a foot ball during the inspection of the revamped Moi International Sports Centre ahead of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) set for next month.
Photo credit: PCS
The approved match venues are the 55,000-seater Moi International Sports Centre (MISC), Kasarani, and the 19,000-seater Nyayo National Stadium, all freshly refurbished.
The training grounds are Ulinzi Sports Complex, Police Sacco Stadium and the Kasarani Annex “A” and “B” that have undergone significant sprucing up.
However, CAF’s stringent requirements for the tournament’s hosting nations go beyond just training and match venues to accommodation, health care and transport.
Sports Principal Secretary Peter Tum (in a sky blue coat), 2024 Chan Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairman Nicholas Musonye (left) and his CEO Mike Rabar during an inspection of the refurbishment of Nyayo National Stadium on November 23, 2024.
Photo credit: Pool
CAF’s regulations demand that Chan’s hosting cities should offer enough accommodation in either four-star or five-star hotels.
With Nairobi boasting several top hotels, Nicholas Musonye, the chairman of Kenya’s 2024 Chan Local Organising Committee, on Friday, July 18, told Nation Sport that they have exclusively settled on five-star hotels to ensure maximum comfort of visiting teams and officials.
“What we are giving them is five star hotels only because we want to make them more comfortable and show the world our high level of hospitality,” said Musonye.
The hotels must be secure, have a meeting room and a state-of-the-art gym, be fully air-conditioned and have easy access to both training and match venues.
Addressing the press on June 11 at Nyayo, Musonye said that accommodation was one of the key areas where Kenya received a clean bill of health during CAF’s initial inspection.
“When CAF came here, the only marks we got from day one was in hospitality. They told us we should not worry about hotels,” said Musonye then.
Musonye said Kenya also scored highly in meeting CAF’s requirement that the stadiums and training venues be located near recognised national hospitals.
He said several national and private hospitals around the tournament’s venues have been engaged and enlisted in CAF’s approved list of health facilities for the tournament.
Musonye revealed that during the tournament, each team will be assigned a dedicated ambulance. Match officials, he said, will also have an ambulance at their disposal, while four ambulances will be stationed at each stadium during matches to cater for both players and fans.
CAF’s other key requirement for Chan hosts is the availability of an international airport.
He added that an aeroplane will be on standby throughout the tournament to fly dignitaries, including CAF officials, to destinations such as Kampala in Uganda, Zanzibar or Dar es Salam in Tanzania.
