Government faces a difficult decision to make on whether to either buy another artificial turf for Kamuzu Stadium or go natural grass.<\/p>\n
A synthetic turf would cost a fortune, but ensures less maintainace costs, whereas the natural grass is relatively cheaper to plant, but costly to maintain regularly.<\/p>\n
For now, the football fraternity should begin to prepare for life without the artificial turf at the giant stadium as it is past its lifespan.<\/p>\n
The stadium\u2019s manager, Ambilike Mwaungulu, said the turf was into its ninth year, and may no longer be in usable condition next season.<\/p>\n
Mwaungulu said considering that the average lifespan of artificial turfs is between six to eight years, the facility at the country\u2019s oldest stadium has served its purpose well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe assess the turf\u2019s condition from time to time. In its present condition, teams can continue using it up to the end of the season.<\/p>\n
After that, we will ask our counterparts from the Buildings Department to assess it and advise us,\u201d Mwaungulu explained.<\/p>\n
He could not, however, be drawn to state on what would happen if assessors from the Buildings Department condemned it, saying Ministry of Sports and Culture officials were better placed to give direction on the matter.<\/p>\n
The ministry\u2019s spokesperson, Christopher Mbukwa, said government\u2019s priority would be to ensure that Blantyre has a facility to accommodate high profile events, including matches.<\/p>\n
He observed that the ministry would opt for a natural surface since it does not have usage limitations as opposed to artificial turfs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur options are open. Its either we install a new artificial turf, which does not come cheap, or we get back to natural grass,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mbukwa said it was difficult coming up with a definite position on the turf since other schools of thought recommended the stadium\u2019s demolition.<\/p>\n
Kamuzu Stadium is the only venue that hosts Super League and international matches in Blantyre, and its closure would mean the end of top-flight action in the commercial city as teams would be forced to use Kalulu, Balaka and Zomba as home grounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government faces a difficult decision to make on whether to either buy another artificial turf for Kamuzu Stadium or go natural grass. A synthetic turf would cost a fortune, but ensures less maintainace costs, whereas the natural grass is relatively cheaper to plant, but costly to maintain regularly. For now, the football fraternity should begin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22289,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22284\/revisions\/22289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}