April 24, 2002	Wednesday	Safar 10, 1423

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KARACHI, April 23: The People’s Sports Complex (PSC) football ground, venue of the Under-20 Asian championship qualifiers, is being spruced up for the four-team contest scheduled to start from Thursday.

While the football championship is to begin barely after 48 hours, the complex, which should have been readied well before April 25, is yet to take its final shape.

However the organisers are confident that the venue would be in shape before the kick-off.

Ground staff could be seen watering the field having several spots of barren land which they claimed would be green before the deadline.

Apart from the huge patches of sand, especially at the centre of the pitch and one close to the goalposts, knee-high craters on the sidelines were quite visible.

Although the work to level the surface was in progress with a bulldozer, a visit to the stadium showed a lot has to be done in the next couple of days.

The whole field would be grassy after few days of watering as there was grass underneath, said a groundsman.

The PSC sprawled over 10 acres, the foundation of which was laid in 1992-93, was inaugurated on Dec 9, 1995. It has, besides an international standard football pitch, a gymnasium and a boxing ring.

The 35,000-seater main stadium equipped with four powerful towers offer an ideal venue to organize international soccer activity under lights.

An electronic scoreboard installed at the PSC is falling apart and has never been used as the defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is yet to make full payment to the suppliers Philips — the electrical company.

The Under-20 contest will be the first international tournament to be hosted at PSC.

The sporting facility is an asset and could be turned into a hub of activities if properly maintained.