The stadium is located on Namboole Hill in Kira Municipality, Wakiso District. The stadium is approximately 11 kilometres (7 mi), by road, east of the central business district of Kampala, Uganda's capital and largest city.[6]
Overview
Mandela National Stadium is mainly used for soccer matches, although other sports such as athletics are also practised. The stadium has a capacity of 45,202 by 2016 before renovation.[3] After renovation in May 2024 which involved putting permanent seats, the capacity decreased to 38,000.[7] The stadium is home to the Uganda national football team, known as the Uganda Cranes.[8]
The stadium was built with a grant of US$36 million from the People's Republic of China (PRC). Originally it was called Namboole Stadium, getting its name from the hill on which it was built. It is now officially called Mandela National Stadium, named after the former South African president, Nelson Mandela. It was opened in 1997 with a concert by Lucky Dube, a reggae artist from South Africa.[3]
Uganda fan inside the stadium
The stadium was refurbished in 2010–11, with a US$2.8 million grant from the PRC.[9]
A committee of the Ugandan parliament reported in 2015 that the stadium was on the verge of financial collapse, claiming that the stadium had suffered from more than a decade of "mismanagement and wanton abuse" and incurred losses totaling UGX:3.6 billion.[10] Running the stadium profitably in a private-public partnership arrangement remains a challenge.[11]
Namboole Stadium was closed for renovation in 2019 after the outbreak of COVID-19 since it did not reach the minimum standards fo CAF to host games.[12] Then 2020, the stadium was blacklisted from hosting football matches due to a substandard state.[13] The reconstruction works, taken by the UPDF Engineering Brigade, have started in 2022, including the installation of a permanent seats in the stadium, new dressing rooms, scoreboard, as well as refreshing the floodlights and the pitch.[13] The renovation of between 2019 and 2024 costed 97 billion Uganda Shillings.[14] After its renovation, the Federation Of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) organized test matches from the Uganda premier League to serve as test events of the stadium before the official opening. The games were played on 1 May 2024 where BUL Fc hosted Vipers Sc, and KCCA FC hosted SC Villa which served as a requirement for the Confederation Of African Football (CAF) to grant the stadium permission to host International Games. A month later, Uganda Cranes returned at Namboole hosting Botswana in the World Cup qualifiers and Algeria a week after.[15]
