The Football Association of Malawi (FAM) says the re-opening of the Mzuzu stadium awaits an inspection to be scheduled by the Mzuzu City Council.

FAM closed the stadium alongside Civo Stadium on 16th August 2023 after the FAM Club Licensing first instance body instituted inspections conducted on 27 July and 28th July respectively highlighted several shortfalls on the two facilities.

The Association’s Competitions and Communications Director Gomezgani Zakazaka said they notified Mzuzu City Council , the owners of the Mzuzu Stadium, on the areas that were supposed to be worked on and now waits for the Council to schedule another inspection to determine if the shortfalls have been addressed so that the facility can be re-opened.

“ As per our club licensing procedure on facilities certification, we are supposed to conduct another inspection to establish if the shortfalls have been addressed.

“We have been in close contact with Mzuzu Stadium authorities and we have noted that they are making good progress in rehabilitating the facility. On Tuesday 10th October 2023, we advised them to schedule another inspection and they indicated that they would advise in due course . So, as it stands the onus is on the council to do that.

“ As FAM we are ready to inspect the facility but this will depend on the City Council scheduling the exercise depending on its readiness as per our standard procedures. We followed the same process with Civo Stadium whose authorities scheduled a second inspection which eventually led to the re-opening of the facility,” said Zakazaka.

Among the main areas of concern for Mzuzu Stadium as per the first inspection were the poor state of the pitch, official authorized capacity not known, poor players tunnel, missing technical benches, poor condition of perimeter fence, poor dressing rooms, no public address system, dilapidated scoreboard etc.