In exactly two weeks Belize will face St. Kitts in round one of the 2010 World Cup qualifying match. And tonight controversy continues to mount over the Football Federation of Belize's decision to play Belize's home game in Guatemala City. As we've been reporting, we can't play the home game at home because we don't have a FIFA approved stadium.
Well the National Sports Council says the game can be played in Belize because we do - or at least by next week - we will have a field good enough for FIFA. They are talking about the Carl Ramos Stadium in Dangriga. A press release from the Sports Council says that a local contractor is working on the stadium and upgrading should be completed by the end of the month. The release basically repeats what the Prime Minister told us on Monday, which is that government had already approved funding and that they needed time to do the necessary work. According to GOB, the FFB approached them in November and originally asked for $50,000 and that figure later ballooned to $160,000. That was still approved on the condition that the Ministry of Works performs the necessary work. That is where it seems FFB and GOB hit a snag.
The game is scheduled for February 6th. They are scheduled to leave on February first. Despite numerous attempts, we were unable to reach the normally candid FFB President Bertie Chimilio on whether the game can still be played in Belize. Our national team played a friendly game against the Salvadoran national team yesterday in Cayo and we lost 1 to nil. We should note that in international news reports, the St. Kitts National Team has said that its win over Belize is guaranteed and they are already looking forward to round 2 of the World Cup qualifying matches.
