Home of John Saldivar’s Belmopan Bandits Gets Major Upgrade…

The Isidoro Beaton Stadium in the nation’s capital is the home of the Belmopan Bandits, owned by Belmopan area representative John Saldivar. That stadium will soon be getting a major upgrading, complete with bleacher and parking facilities and an upgraded field, thanks to the government of Belize and Belize Infrastructure Limited. It’s not a bad deal for the Bandits or for John Saldivar, and it begged the question – is it a conflict of interest for a U.D.P. Minister with a private and monetary interest in a private football team to benefit so directly from a major influx of government cash?

Christy Mastry, General Manager, Belize Infrastructure Limited

Christy Mastry

“I will take it from an urban planner perspective. No, it is not a conflict of interest in any way. Isidoro Beaton is a highly prominent football facility right now used by the Bandits, this is true, but the land is government land and it is within the entity of Sports Council, and the idea of looking for green field land to redundantly create another facility which is already completely publicly accessible would absolutely make no urban sense whatsoever from a planning perspective. So I don’t think it was a direct choice in any way. I was not influenced at all by the Area Representative. This was an assessment that we took hand in hand…I think I spent more time with the F.F.B. prior to even spending time with the Area Representative on whether or not the field could be complimentary and what assets we could put on that field to help alleviate some of the strain of always using the F.F.B. field, which as we know will be natural grass and for competition play the field does need to rest from time to time, so from an urban planning perspective it couldn’t have been better.”

The Isidoro Beaton Stadium is one of six major projects being undertaken by BIL, including the twenty-five million dollar Belize City Center.