- Kasarani Stadium is one of the main facilities for the CHAN 2024 tournament which will be co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
- The stadium will host CHAN 2024 Group A fixtures involving the likes of Zambia, Angola and Kenya.
- The CHAN 2024 tournament will be held between Saturday, August 2 and Saturday, August 30, 2025.
Kasarani Stadium, a facility synonymous with Kenya’s rich sports history, is ready to host CHAN 2024 but with a reduced capacity of 48,000.
The stadium, which is located in Nairobi, will host CHAN 2024 Group A games in the tournament that is set to kick-off on Saturday, August 2, 2025.
Some of the teams that will play at the Kasarani Stadium include Kenya, Zambia, Morocco, DR Congo and Angola.
As Nairobi and the rest of East African cities continue buzzing for CHAN 2024, most fans are wondering why the Kasarani Stadium’s capacity was significantly reduced from 60,000 to 48,000.
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Why Kasarani Stadium capacity had to be reduced ahead of CHAN 2024
The answer to that question lies in an incident that occurred during the 1987 All-Africa Games final pitting the Harambee Stars against Egypt.
According to the CHAN 2024 Local Organizing Committee (LOC) chairperson Nicholas Musonye, the memorable final nearly led to a disaster after the stadium was filled with more people than expected.
“In 1987 I was on the media committee of the Kenya LOC for All Africa Games. This stadium was supposed to be 60,000 seater at that time, but 100,000 people were here on the final day of Kenya vs Egypt.
So, that’s why we said we can’t make that mistake again to have 100,000 plus,” he explained during an interview on NTV.
The former CECAFA Secretary General (SG) added that they had to reduce the capacity to ensure the safety of all stakeholders as well as make it comfortable for spectators.
“We had to get these seats, make it comfortable for people to watch football and controllable. People can sit comfortably because when you put the seats you kill some space, you know that. So, we have put 48,000 seats so that people sit comfortably and watch the game.
The risk of having no seats is that you lock the stadium with so many people like the way it happened in 1987. If the president was not around maybe we could have had a disaster. We don’t want to have that kind of fear in the future.
So, that’s why you see every seat is numbered and everyone will come in with the seat number directly to where you are going to sit. That’s one of the improvements we have done,” stated Musonye.
Which CHAN 2024 matches will be played at Kasarani Stadium?
The Kenya vs DR Congo Group A clash will be the first CHAN 2024 match to be played at the Kasarani Stadium on Sunday, August 3.
After that, Harambee Stars will play Angola and Morocco on Thursday, August 7 and Sunday, August 10 respectively before completing their group fixture with a tough encounter against Zambia on Sunday, August 17.
Should Harambee Stars go all the way to the CHAN 2024 final, Kenyans would have an opportunity to watch their side fight for the continental bragging rights at Kasarani Stadium.
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