The refurbished National Stadium will make its long awaited return on Wednesday 28th with an international friendly between Botswana and Libya. The Botswana Football Association (BFA) also confirmed that they are negotiating with the Football Association of Malawi (FAM) to face the Flames on September 3rd. Keith Masters, the BFA Chief Executive Officer, told Gazette Sport that the previously scheduled match against Angola has been called off because the Portuguese speaking nation had already lined up another friendly on Sunday.
“I had a meeting with our Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture and he proposed an international friendly match for the official handing over of the stadium. He had planned talks with his Angolan counterpart but they have since ruled themselves out because they already had another game billed for Sunday,” said the BFA CEO. He added that he is in regular contact with the Malawian association’s secretary general to setup a friendly match on Saturday. Masters added that they have enlisted Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe as back up plans if the Malawi match fails to materialize.” We are planning to have a mid-week game.
Wednesday would bean ideal day and we want to organize two consecutive games to celebrate the official opening of the upgraded stadium. The nation has been eagerly waiting for this occasion and we want to entertain the supporters by giving them two games within five days,” continued Masters. The National Stadium had been inactive since 2008, and unconfirmed reports have suggested that the stadium will be one of the venues for the upcoming beMobile Premier League games. The leaked fixtures reportedly listed the stadium as one of the league’s grounds and the stadium fee for each match is expected to be in excess of P30 000.