THE pitches at the five local stadia which will host the 2010 FIFA Under-17 World Cup have been given only a Grade C rating by FIFA pitch consultant John Lockyer.
Englishman Lockyer was the expert in charge of the 2010 FIFA World Cup's pitch management programme, where he was responsible for the surfaces at all 10 World Cup stadia in South Africa. He successfully performed a similar rescue exercise when unusually cold winter conditions left the South African pitches in an unprepared state for the tournament.
In Trinidad and Tobago, major work has to be done on the playing surface at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, where the Soca Princesses will play the opening match against Chile on September 5. And even though the surfaces at the Manny Ramjohn, Larry Gomes, Ato Boldon and Dwight Yorke stadia are fairly good, they are not up to the standard which FIFA, the governing body for world football, require for a World Cup. Lockyer is here offering consulting services to the Local Organising Committee (LOC) free of charge.
"We are at this stage, 65 per cent ready and we are working to finish the other 35 per cent between Wednesday and Thursday of next week. It 's a close finish. It's a challenge for all of us, but we will make our country proud," declared Felix "Baldy" Hernandez, the LOC chairman of facilities. "We are working at a pace, and despite all the rumours, the World Cup will come off successfully."
Hernandez said further: "We started very late, mainly due to the approval of funding. Contracts were awarded over the weekend and all contractors are working 24-seven to make sure that we are ready for the World Cup."
The venues needing the most work currently are the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago, which recently had part of the roof blown off, and also the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain, where the opening and closing matches will be played.
Hernandez stated that a lot of work also had to be done on almost all of the training venues which include those at St Mary's ground, Queen's Royal College ground, the University of the West Indies and other venues. There was major concern about the state of dressing rooms as well.
At the stadiums, Hernandez said that major work will be done on bringing flood lighting up to international standard. Major remedial work will have to be done to dressing rooms and international media facilities, while the Ministry of Health require certain stipulations concerning medical infrastructure, and have also demanded the upgrade of food serving areas because of poor maintenance over the years.
"The maintenance and remedial work at the stadia will cost about $15 million," Hernandez said. "The ground preparation costs in the region of six million dollars, and we will also need to bring in specialist equipment which will cost another two million dollars.
"Painting of the stadiums is also a major task , we will have to paint the venue, including dress rooms and so on and that will cost approximately $3.5 million."
Finally, Hernandez said that while problems associated with the venues cannot be tackled in two weeks, the LOC will be concentrating on the major ones, and are confident of doing a more than adequate job.