The Ministry of Sports is working extra hard to ensure the certification of Nyayo Stadium for international matches from next month and beyond.

On Saturday, the Confederation of African Football CAF dropped a bombshell that no stadium in Kenya was fit to host top-notch matches of global calibre something that has left Gor Mahia and Kenya Police FC lingering on where to take their visitors come next month for their Champions League and Confederations Cup assignments respectively.

The Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Sports Peter Tum says nothing is lost and there is hope for Nyayo Stadium approval in due course to ensure that the matches are staged at home in Nairobi.

This comes after the CAF delegation completed inspection works on stadia earmarked to host the 2027 African Cup of Nations on Sunday. The CAF checked the progress at the Kasarani Stadium, Talanta Sports City Stadium and Nyayo National Stadium.

According to PS Tum,one of the conversations with the CAF team was the certification of Nyayo Stadium for use by the two Kenya clubs and the national football team Harambee Stars which returns to action at home against Zimbabwe in September for the opening game of the 2025 African Cup of Nations Qualifiers.

“We discussed that at length and when we visited Nyayo Stadium, one of the promises they made to us is that if we move with the speed that we are already taking then an approval is almost guaranteed. We are so positive that approval will be obtained and the qualifiers will be played at Nyayo Stadium,” PS Tum told People Sport.

Whilst the dependable City venue has been on a temporal closure to fix the required areas for its pass, the contractor has thrown the spanner in the works for its new look, working on camera one area, just above the VIP, changing rooms, the media centre that was required to be amended from level two to level three. The floodlights for night action are another area that the contraction has been tasked to fix and it is recommended to reach 500 lux.

“This Nyayo Stadium will be ready in one month’s time. We only have two weeks for the contractor to complete the work. The CAF team were impressed by this venue especially the playing surface which they termed as good. The grass itself, the way it has been maintained and everything else is quite good. Remember we had closed this venue to ensure that we were ready for any qualifying matches that we needed to play and any other assignment that CAF would give us and therefore they (CAF) are quite happy.

One of the developments after the CAF inspectors’ visits is that Kenya will have to prepare four training venues for the 2027 AFCON instead of the previous three venues listed. Kenya will have three training venues at the proposed new Talanta Sports City Stadium at Jamhuri. The Ulinzi Sports Complex has now been earmarked as a training facility for match officials which is a new requirement.