By Mark Baber
January 11 – Iraq’s Essam al-Diwan, undersecretary for the Ministry of Youth and Sports Affairs, giving a presentation in Manama, said Iraq will be ready to host the Gulf Cup in the southern city of Basra in 2015.
The 2013 tournament, currently being held in Bahrain, was originally scheduled to take place in Basra
but was moved due to security concerns.
“Security and safety will be ensured,” said al-Diwan.
“We will work on organising the best Gulf Cup tournament ever to be held. We trust our brothers in the Gulf will back us, and we have promises of support from the heads of sports federations.”
The grass is already green at the new Sports City stadium in Basra which is being built by Abdullah Al-Jaburi, a major Iraqi construction contractor, and US companies 360 Architecture and Newport Global. The main stadium with a 65,000 capacity is scheduled to open in March 2013, along with hotels to accommodate teams and visitors.
Despite being safer than other Iraqi cities, Basrah is still far from being a paradise city, with four attacks per month, according to risk consultancy AKE speaking in October 2012 and the British consulate having recently been closed down due to security costs, much to the chagrin of Baroness Nicholson, founder of the Iraq-Britain Business Council.
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