$270 million stadium to be built in Kabul

[Bengal_Tiger]

$270 million stadium to be built in Kabul

By KHAAMA PRESS - Sun Oct 11 2015, 9:32 pm

$270 million stadium in KabulA new stadium will be built in capital Kabul with an estimated cost of $270 million, it has been reported.

According to Radio Ashna/Voice of America (VOA), the stadium will be built in the outskirts of Kabul city to facilitate the men and women to participate in athletic exercises and domestic and international competitions.
Prominent Afghan signer Muzhda Jamalzada is serving as the spokeswoman and head of the public relations of the Foundation tasked with the fundraising and construction of the project.

She told Radio Ashna that the support of the Afghan government for the project has been attained and the United States of America formally recognized the project last week.

According to Jamalzada, the project will cost around $270 million which would be raised with the support of the famous American athletes.
She said the first fundraiser event would be organized in the residence of American boxing legend Muhammad Ali Clay.

Ali has met with the head of the Foundation and designer of the stadium Ata Amin where he promised to establish the Muhammad Ali Clay Centre in the vicinity of the stadium.
Jamalzada also added that fundraiser events will also be organized in Europe, Canada and other parts of the world to collect funds for the construction of the stadium.
The stadium project will also include other development projects such hospital, Kindergarten and health clinics with the experts saying the implementation of such projects would not only provide employment and job opportunities but will also help Afghanistan to host international sports competitions.

http://www.khaama.com/270-million-stadium-to-be-built-in-kabul-1619

[marwat]

If Afghanistan is going the path of pakistan, i would rather change my loyalties back home.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

If Afghanistan is going the path of pakistan, i would rather change my loyalties back home.

Kabul is one of the filthiest places on earth. Dirt and excrements pollute the air. If you put on a white set of kameez partug in the morning and you spend all day in Kabul, in the evening your clothes will contain all sorts of filth including excrements of people which has turned unit dust and is floating around in the air.

In a place like Kabul, the most urgent necessity is to get rid of all the pollution. The city is built to house around 500.000 people. Currently there are over 7 million inhabitants.

If there is any money, it should be used to get rid of all the pollution, modernize the drainage and sewers etc.

Building a stadium is not a priority. It is a cosmetic change which only fools the ignorant and misguided people.

Most people in Kabul don't drive in air conditioned SUV's and they don't live and work in newly built fancy mentions. Most people suffer from lack of garbage control, lack of appropriate drainage and sewerage. Most people have serious health problems.

people who are happy to see so much money being wasted on an unnecessary stadium have total disregard for human lives.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

That *****, mujhda jamalzada is hired by her pumps to promote this project. Hahah

[DaZahroJaam.]

will people make a bigger name off of cleaning up streets that will instantly be filled up with trash or making a stadium that will last a couple of decades at least?? you can't clean a room let alone a country unless the people occupying the space in it learn the manners and develop an appreciation for cleanliness. so using that money to clean up the streets would be a huge mistake because they will turn it in to a trash bin in no time.
i have seen people throwing trash out of their cars in to the streets of kabul even after having lived their entire lives in the west.
and charsullah, if you can't manage to keep an outfit clean and untouched by excrement by the end of a single day, you should consider not giving lectures on pollution and focus on your surroundings instead.

it's not that we are dirty people, it's just that no afghan wants to take responsibility for anything that is happening around them. it's always someone elses fault.

[Shapur]

I have to agree with Shamlawar here that building a stadium is the last thing Kabul needs, this money could have been spent to build a new university, a hospital, proper sewage system to housing for the poor but the problem with Afghanistan and most third world countries is corruption. Billions of dollars have been wasted since 2001 due to corruption. Problem is not lack of funds but accountability and rule of law.

[randolph85]

Estimated cost is 270 million? In Afghanistan? If their was no corruption, you could build a town the size of Kunduz for that much money.

I also love the fact that funding of Kabul's largest construction endeavor comprises of some woman asking American athletes for money.

What a joke.

[DaZahroJaam.]

Look at you all, acting as if it was coming out of the states budget or something. People didn't donate money to get rid of pollution, they donated to build a stadium. You get to decide what you want to do with the money you spend, not the money others spend on something. You all feel passionate about cleaning Kabul, busmillah. Let your wallets do the talking.

[DaZahroJaam.]

And unless it's a permanent solution, there is no point of bothering to clean a city that you don't even live in. They will mess it up in no time. Why encourage irresponsibility and laziness. This is their city, they should clean it on their own.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Estimated cost is 270 million? In Afghanistan? If their was no corruption, you could build a town the size of Kunduz for that much money.

I also love the fact that funding of Kabul's largest construction endeavor comprises of some woman asking American athletes for money.

What a joke.

The more interesting part of this is that these joker expat failures in the West that have decided they are Khanaan in the East are obviously less economically savvy than they pretend. A large meta analysis of the economics of stadium building, sustaining, and utility has led most economists to reason that Stadiums are a detriment and not a catalyst to economic growth:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/july/stadium-economics-noll-073015.html

"There are a lot of things economists disagree about, but the economic impact of sports stadiums is not one of them."

That is how the KPCC story began, and I have to admit I figured that it must mean the consensus was that stadiums and professional sports teams brought financial rewards to their cities.

“If you ever had a consensus in economics, this would be it," said Michael Leeds, a sports economist at Temple University. "There is no impact."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/20/1365048/-Sports-Stadiums-Have-No-Impact-on-Municipal-Economies-So-Why-is-it-We-Still-Subsidize-the-NFL

Roger Noll, the Stanford economist said that these sorts of ventures have to host a variety of activities (e.g. non sports, tractor pulls etc) to break even and get the stadium to pay for itself.

In fact, all these little building ventures in Kabul that the emigres are pushing are proven not to really benefit the populations that they claim would benefit. Various case examples include the similar approach to waterfront development in the USA:

People do get rich off these projects, but not in the way one would think. Much of the wealth comes not from the actual performance of these enterprises, but rather the fees that developers always make when they create the projects. Now, I will say that other people benefit, too. Owners of the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens -- along with the millionaire athletes on these teams -- benefit from the subsidies, and people who actually can afford to watch the teams play are the consumers.

Furthermore, the young people who enjoy living in an urban environment with all of the bars, restaurants, and other amenities, also benefit from the high-profile benefits that people claim will "revitalize" the cities. Here is the problem, however: the main beneficiaries of subsidized redevelopment are affluent whites, from the developers to the young people who populate these "redeveloped" areas.

What this translates into the Afghan arena is that the emigres rich enough to live in these glitzy areas are the ones that benefit but not Random Jan and Randoma Janaa living in the poverty stricken areas of Kabul or the adjoining rural areas.

Its just window dressing my friend. The inevitable outcome is going to be slowed by a few years now that the spot light is back on Afghanistan after Kunduz, but in due time the doldrums will come.

[khushal]

Kabul is one of the filthiest places on earth. Dirt and excrements pollute the air. If you put on a white set of kameez partug in the morning and you spend all day in Kabul, in the evening your clothes will contain all sorts of filth including excrements of people which has turned unit dust and is floating around in the air.

In a place like Kabul, the most urgent necessity is to get rid of all the pollution. The city is built to house around 500.000 people. Currently there are over 7 million inhabitants.

If there is any money, it should be used to get rid of all the pollution, modernize the drainage and sewers etc.

Building a stadium is not a priority. It is a cosmetic change which only fools the ignorant and misguided people.

Most people in Kabul don't drive in air conditioned SUV's and they don't live and work in newly built fancy mentions. Most people suffer from lack of garbage control, lack of appropriate drainage and sewerage. Most people have serious health problems.

people who are happy to see so much money being wasted on an unnecessary stadium have total disregard for human lives.

The biggest one is that there are too many cars and the fuels they use are very dirty that produce sulfer dioxide and nitrous oxide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/world/asia/kabuls-pollution-is-real-despite-unpleasant-exaggeration.html?_r=0

http://www.afghan-web.com/environment/kabul_air_quality.pdf

[khushal]

will people make a bigger name off of cleaning up streets that will instantly be filled up with trash or making a stadium that will last a couple of decades at least?? you can't clean a room let alone a country unless the people occupying the space in it learn the manners and develop an appreciation for cleanliness. so using that money to clean up the streets would be a huge mistake because they will turn it in to a trash bin in no time.
i have seen people throwing trash out of their cars in to the streets of kabul even after having lived their entire lives in the west.
and charsullah, if you can't manage to keep an outfit clean and untouched by excrement by the end of a single day, you should consider not giving lectures on pollution and focus on your surroundings instead.

it's not that we are dirty people, it's just that no afghan wants to take responsibility for anything that is happening around them. it's always someone elses fault.

Ghula,
If a city booms from 500,000 to over 7 million in a little over a decade, its going to be messy especially when there is no infrastructure to support that many people.

[DaZahroJaam.]

Ghula,
If a city booms from 500,000 to over 7 million in a little over a decade, its going to be messy especially when there is no infrastructure to support that many people.

i don't know why i always feel so deprived when you act like an idiot. i should be used to it by now. in five years or however many that this forum has been up for, i have not witnessed you be positive about a matter, even once.
don't tell me what the problem is. i am well aware of what the problem is. suggest a solution. if the problems of a 7 million populated city has expanded, why doesn't it's infrastructure expand too?? if a bigger population creates a bigger mess, why does it not provide as many opportunities to fix these problems too?? so if it doesn't then it means that something is wrong and that when the population raised, the general population became stupider and more useless than it was when it was smaller.
your brain can only process so much at a time and it's almost always the negatives. don't you ****ing call me names.

[DaZahroJaam.]

why am i even taking you seriously?? if it was up to the likes of you, you would put these people in charge of cleanliness. now which angle do these creatures look like agents of cleanliness from??

[khushal]

i don't know why i always feel so deprived when you act like an idiot. i should be used to it by now. in five years or however many that this forum has been up for, i have not witnessed you be positive about a matter, even once.
don't tell me what the problem is. i am well aware of what the problem is. suggest a solution. if the problems of a 7 million populated city has expanded, why doesn't it's infrastructure expand too?? if a bigger population creates a bigger mess, why does it not provide as many opportunities to fix these problems too?? so if it doesn't then it means that something is wrong and that when the population raised, the general population became stupider and more useless than it was when it was smaller.
your brain can only process so much at a time and it's almost always the negatives. don't you ****ing call me names.

The fault lies with the gov. The population is not provided with cleaner fuels, most of the city has no garbage pick up service that should include garbage bins set up all over the city. They should employ and enforce building code guidelines that ensure the public safety that includes covering up the sewers. Water filtering plants should have been built since Kabul water is extremely filthy. An educational program should have been launched so the population could adapt and efficiently use the services. Trees, bushes and grass should be grown everywhere and the gov should encourage the public to do so in their yards.