With the assistance of Chinese funding and construction, Zambia is about ready to unveil its newest stadium in Ndola, the southern African country’s third largest city.
As with Libreville’s new stadium in Gabon and elsewhere, China’s African diplomacy is fitting out sparkling new sporting infrastructure. Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company built the new 40,100 capacity multi-purpose stadium for $65 million. The stadium design is reminiscent of others funded by China around the world, such as Costa Rica’s Estadio Nacional.
Around 200 Chinese workers joined roughly 1,000 Zambians on the project, with the handover scheduled to take place soon – though it has been delayed since the original intended date, October 24th, Zambia’s Independence Day due to issues with the telecommunications system.
Perhaps ironically, the new stadium in Ndola replaces one with its own diplomatic history: it’s being built on the site of the Dag Hammarskjold Stadium, named after the former United Nations Secretary General, demolished as long ago as 1998 with several stadium projects since having failed to come to fruition. Hammarskjold was a strong supporter of Zambian independence, achieved in 1964, three years after Hammerskjold was killed in a plane crash just outside Ndala. He is still remembered fondly in Zambia today.
The stadium has been named after Zambia’s former president, Levy Mwanawasa, who died in 2008 and had initiated the project with the Chinese.
The new stadium’s construction, begun in September 2009, has not been without problems: construction workers staged a strike in October complaining about unpaid wages, and one said that their wages had been reduced after being told “too much money may kill them.”
The stadium’s construction was struck with tragedy in April 2011, when a fire killed two construction workers. Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company donated $2,000 to the victims’ families.
Zesco United, of Zambia’s FAZ Premier Division, are expected to play at Levy Mwanawasa stadium, though no tenancy agreement has been announced yet.
Zambia hopes to win hosting rights for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, with the Levy Mwanawasa Stadium at the center of those plans. A new stadium is also being constructed in the capital Lusaka, and there are also plans for a new stadium in the coastal city of Livingstone.
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