The Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um is now in­to phase three of its re­fur­bish­ment, with work­ing on­go­ing on the light­ing sys­tem, the PA sys­tem, the gyms, and the grounds. How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, Sham­fa Cud­joe, stopped short of giv­ing a date when the phase will be com­plet­ed.

She said at the post-cab­i­net press brief­ing which took place at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann's on Thurs­day, "As it re­lates to host­ing the ba­sic sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, Dwight Yorke [Sta­di­um] is ready, but I don’t want to tell peo­ple that they are just free to book Dwight Yorke [Sta­di­um] be­cause when we are ready to do the lights, Dwight Yorke [Sta­di­um] has to be closed for some days in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate the erec­tion of the lights."

Some events such as the Sec­ondary Schools Games and the Pri­ma­ry Schools Games have tak­en place at the fa­cil­i­ty over the last few weeks. The Fal­con Games is al­so ex­pect­ed to take place at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in mid-April. Min­is­ter Cud­joe con­firmed the venue will con­tin­ue to re­main open for the while. "The on­ly time the fa­cil­i­ty will not be avail­able is when we get to the ac­tu­al in­stal­la­tion of the lights. Peo­ple won’t be able to use it at night," she said.

Mean­while, the foot­baller whom the sta­di­um is named in ho­n­our of, was al­so the top­ic of dis­cus­sion as it re­lates to his am­bas­sador­ship role, along with for­mer West In­dies cap­tain Bri­an Lara. Cud­joe con­firmed the pol­i­cy was re­vised when the gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice. "When we came in­to gov­ern­ment, we met a num­ber of arrange­ments with dif­fer­ent ath­letes to be am­bas­sadors for T&T... some­thing new has to be worked out as to what are their du­ties and their re­port­ing func­tions," she said.

In the pre­vi­ous pol­i­cy, Yorke, who played 72 times for T&T on the foot­ball field, had a sep­a­rate arrange­ment with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) while Lara had a sep­a­rate arrange­ment with Trinidad as it re­lates to tourism and sport. Cud­joe con­firmed con­ver­sa­tions are be­ing held with Lara as it re­lates to re-es­tab­lish­ing these arrange­ments and the role he can play as it re­lates to tourism, sports de­vel­op­ment, and the to­tal par­tic­i­pa­tion in sport pro­gramme.

She said dis­cus­sions took place as re­cent­ly as Fri­day, March 1st, and will con­tin­ue when he re­turns from his trip to Dubai.