With barely 11 days to the grand finale of the CAF Champions League, which would be watched by 60 CAF officials and other foreign dignitaries, some of the facilities at the Accra Sports Stadium are still in deplorable state.

These include 184 broken plastic chairs that are yet to be replaced. In an interview with the GNA, Colonel George Brock, Acting Chief Executive of the National Sports Council said, Dygate, the company which fixed the Upper Terrace chairs, has not responded to an invitation to assess the damage and commence replacement work.

He explained that, Dygate was contacted because there has not been any problems with their part of chair installations as compared to stands fixed by other contractors. Colonel Brock said even though the NSC believes in maintenance culture and is committed to protect public property under its care, there are some recalcitrant fans who visit the stadium.

He regretted the situation whereby people go to the extent of stealing plumbing equipment fixed at the toilets and consequently, rendering them unusable. The Chief Executive said even though it has contemplated to charge very low user fees to generate revenue for maintenance, the idea was discarded to prevent fans from vandalising the facilities.

Col. Brock said the stadium could not be shut down completely while repair work goes on for the Hearts- Esperance match since there are other sporting disciplines which take other visitors there.

He however gave the assurance that all faults would be rectified before the big match and the facilities would glitter and leave a good impression in the minds of foreigners who would be at the stadium.

The Chief Executive appealed to all people who visit the stadium to be "patriotic enough and spare the facilities which have been built with the tax payers' money". "Let everybody become a watch dog in defence of our national property so that money wasted on repairs could be used to provide other facilities for the development of sports", he concluded.