The Cup Semifinals of the 2024 men’s Rugby Africa Cup have been shifted from the Muteesa II Stadium Wankulukuku back to the Mandela National Stadium Namboole, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) has announced.
The announcement was made during a press conference held at Namboole on Tuesday morning, a day ahead of the semifinals.
“We’ve changed the schedule from Muteesa II Stadium Wankulukuku back to here (Namboole). The move has been made basically on a technical basis; the ground here is much better than the one on the other side. We decided to bring it (the tournament) back here because we have a centralised operational center here,” Erasmus Aredo, the LOC vice-chairperson said.
Uganda Rugby Union President Godwin Arinaitwe Kayangwe added that Wankulukuku’s facilities were found to be insufficient and unprepared to host all the teams on the matchday.
“The actual main issue is because the facility at Wankulukuku did not have enough changing rooms for the eight teams. And for this class of Rugby Africa Cup fifteens, we cannot assume as we have assumed in the past that tents will do it. Otherwise, the (playing) surface at Wankulukuku passed the test and it has actually been prepared and marked ready as the alternative pitch in the event of any issues.” Kayangwe said.
However, the change in venue back to Namboole has not affected the fixtures on Matchday Two. They will stay as initially scheduled with the Placement Matches in the morning session and the Cup Semifinals in the afternoon.
Senegal will take on Cote d’Ivoire at 10 a.m. local time (EAT) and Uganda will face Burkina Faso at noon. For a place in the final, Kenya will battle Algeria at 2 p.m. and Namibia will battle Zimbabwe at 4 p.m.
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