Two men clean the seats at the Camille Chamoun Sports City before the kick-off of the 12th Asian Football Cup, August 6, 2000, in Beirut. (Credit: AFP archives)
Lebanon's Youth and Sports Minister, Nora Bairakdarian, visited Beirut's Sports City on Monday, insisting on the need for a study into its rehabilitation.
Accompanied by a delegation from her Ministry, Bairakdarian visited the facility, which has been neglected for years, and asked Naji Hammoud, acting general manager of the Sports City, to “prepare a study on the actions to be taken, with a view to rehabilitating the essential infrastructures, in particular the soccer pitch, the athletics track and the multi-purpose hall,” reports the state-run National News Agency.
At the end of February, the Minister had already informed President Joseph Aoun of her intention to renovate the site, where the funeral of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had taken place a week earlier.
The Sports City, inaugurated in 1957, is an iconic state-owned stadium that once hosted the region's most important sporting and cultural events before falling into disuse. During the war between Israel and Hezbollah over the past two years, it has been transformed into a dormitory and sheltered almost 1,000 displaced persons.
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