Sports Council and B.D.F. Repairing Damaged MCC Football Field

A year and a half ago, the MCC Grounds in Belize City was closed to facilitate a much needed upgrade. The works were contracted out and scheduled to be completed in two months. But that never happened. The contractor dug a trench around the field and never filled it back in. The field has been in use, but it is dangerous, and at least one footballer has gotten injured from falling into the deep drain right at the edge of the field. That’s the situation which met new Director of the National Sports Council Ritchel Dominguez. It’s a baptism by fire for the man who hasn’t been in that position for more than a couple weeks. But he’s dealing with a bad situation thanks to the capable hands of the Belize Defence Force.

Ritchel Dominguez

Ritchel Dominguez, Director, National Sports Council

“The stadium has been left here with these trenches. I just took office about three weeks ago. But what we’re trying to do is get up to a standard where we can use the field again because as we know the BPLF has started and the B.D.F. has asked us if they can use the field. There are different competitions going on and we feel like it’s a bit too dangerous to have them using the field with these trenches. We have partnered with the B.D.F. to get them to come in and we’re using our workers to get the pipes in so that we can make it safe for the public. The purpose of the pipes are for electrical. What they were going to do is put up new lighting in the facilities. But what happened is the project stalled and I don’t know why it stalled. But we can’t keep the trenches open for another year or so because we won’t get the use of the field as it should. The estimated cost is about twenty-two thousand dollars to get it done. We are partnering with B.D.F. so it’s much less than we anticipated. We keep on working with the public and anyone who wants to work with us to get jobs done for the Sports Council.”