Bukhatir to build Sports City in Tunisia

Dubai: Abdul Rahman Bukhatir, who had brought international cricket to the UAE and built two world-class stadiums in Sharjah and Dubai, has embarked on another project to promote sports in Tunisia.

He will be constructing a Sports City in the country spread over an area of 13 hectres with an investment of 642 million Tunisian Dinar (Dh1.75 billion).

The project, which is expected to be ready by 2015, will be called Cedar and will include have high rise towers, banks, business centres and shopping malls like in the Dubai Sports City which is nearing completion.

"Tunisia is a fast developing country and is ideal for sports development and so I felt that a sports city will be apt for this place," Bukhatir told Gulf News.

Bukhatir has focused on the North African country, bordered by Algeria on the west and Libya on the south east, with the aim of creating more facilities for international sports organisations to uplift the standard of sports around the world.

"We will be building coaching centres and we are in touch with all international sports bodies to utilise the facilities here," added Bukhatir, who had already built a cricket stadium in Tangiers in Morocco. This stadium became the 141st venue to stage and One-day international match in 2002.

When asked whether there would be a tie up with the Dubai Sports City, of which he is one of the partners, Bukhatir said: "The purpose of building this sports city in Tunisia is to get together the international sports organisations from around the world and facilitate the development of sports."

Elaborating on his plans, Bukhatir said "Football is very popular in Tunisia and hence we will be focusing on it.

"We will be building a football stadium that can accommodate over 10,000 spectators," he added.

Bukhatir also said that tennis is big in Tunisia. "Considering the fact that tennis is also popular we will be creating facilities for this sport too. There will also be a state-of-the-art Olympic swimming pool.

"We are in the process of signing an agreement with the Swimming Trainers Association of USA," he said.