Cabinet Approves $750K for Restoration of Mexican Sports Center

Cabinet has agreed to source 750 thousand dollars for the restoration of the Mexican Sports Center. The facility bore significant damages to the roof and structure during Hurricane Lisa in November 2022.  The center is a multipurpose venue gifted to Belize by the Government of Mexico as a symbol of enduring friendship between the two nations. Minister of Sports, Anthony Mahler, recently made a commitment to upgrade and rehabilitate sporting facilities across the country.

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Sports: “To me again it has to be disciplined approach. It has to be focused approach, it has to be planned. I can tell you we will have a good amount of money to start some of the upgrades in the facilities, some of the programs we want to launch and we go from there. I had a very very fruitful meeting with the Prime Minister yesterday to speak about sports and over the last couple weeks I’ve been meeting with the management of the National Sports Council as we move forward we will continue to speak to the federations and the associations and then we want to have a national symposium where we bring everybody together and show them our plans, our strategies, how we move forward after consultation with the country. I haven’t seen the final budget yet but we had a discussion about that yesterday and other ways on how we can raise money whether it’s a secondary lottery or putting an endowment fund that is akin to concession granted to big companies so we have some ideas and to me you can’t have between youth and sporty you can’t have a budget of $7.5 million dollars and $7 million dollars are spent on administration and salaries and $250,000 in youth for programs and $250,000 in programs and maintaining facilities for sports. It is ridiculous. So we are going to make some adjustments in the structures of both departments and we’re going to do what is best for the country of Belize and especially the young people of Belize.”

The restoration of the center is expected to immediately reinstate a high-standard venue to the national inventory of sporting facilities. Before the hurricane, the center served as a vital hub for a wide range of athletic events, and its return to full functionality is a welcome development for the sports community and the general public