On the afternoon of March 3rd, 2019, the autocratic Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir presided over the long awaited opening ceremony for the Sudan Sports City. After thanking all the parties involved in the project he informed them that in fact, the complex would really be open in three months, when the work was actually finished. This was the third time the project opening was delayed. President Al-Bashir was deposed four weeks later. Lost in the turmoil that gripped the country, the ceremony, a purely ideological act since construction was never completed, seemed to bring an end to the tortured existence of a project that, to many Sudanese men and women, exemplified the corruption and incompetence of the state.

The saga of Sudan Sports City is typical of the many infrastructural projects, promised but not delivered by the deposed regime. In a country with limited resources, infrastructural development was precious political capital. The regime utilised infrastructure, and thus architecture, as a vehicle to further political ambitions, deploying it as an effective arm of state propaganda. Infrastructure development,Colin McFarlane and Jonathan Rutherford (2008) point out, is fundamentally a political process. The stark differences between what was promised (the project was to catapult Sudanese athletics onto the world stage in 3 years) and what was delivered (the project was deemed a failure) tells of a deep dysfunction that has plagued the Sudanese economy, government and infrastructural development for decades. The unmistakable, squat mass of the Sudan Sports City is a site of visible state investment; offering up an exquisite corpse, one that evidences the circumstances that drove this dysfunction. Within this imposing edifice, its concrete guts and its political infamy is an archive hewn onto the built environment. This archive, constantly evolving and accruing, offers a means through which Sudanese people can critically interrogate the narratives of oppression and complicity that have shaped their relationship with the state.

Sudan Sports City

Initially conceived in early 1966, the Sudan Sports City, or AlMadina AlRiyadia came under serious consideration by President Gaffar Nimery in 1972. The nascent project was shelved after studies, commissioned by the Ministry of Youths and Sports, predicted a high price tag and the lack of local expertise to properly execute the project. A flicker of hope was ignited when, in late 1989, under a new, elected government, Omdurman based football club Al-Merrikh returned to Sudan carrying the African Cup Winners Cup trophy. This triumph of global proportions coincided with the coup d’etat that deposed the country’s young democracy, replacing them with the militarised autocratic regime of President Al-Bashir. Buoyed by the international nature of this achievement and eager to capitalize on the patriotic fervour engulfing its citizens, the state declared the revival of the Sudan Sports City Project, a project that would provide the youth of Sudan with the infrastructure to replicate the exploits of the champions from Omdurman.

The search for a home for the SSC project culminated in the issuance of a presidential directive, instructing the appropriation of 1.5 million square metres of farmland (الساقية 33 مطري الجريف غرب) in the southern periphery of the capital Khartoum. The site was designated as residential property and its former owners were compensated with individual plots extracted from the project site. Disputes regarding the compensation offered by the state were swiftly crushed. With no hope for a favourable judgment, the original land owners were forced to acquiesce to the will of the state. This was the first of many territorial disputes that plagued the project. Indeed, through its lifetime, the project was the site of territorial and legislative violence, perpetrated by both the state and private capital.

Center & Periphery

Commensurate to the political capital invested in the project, the program for the Sudan Sports City was very ambitious. The project was designed by Al Dar Consult and contracted to Dan Fodio Group for construction, both companies with ties to the ruling regime. The program consisted of an olympic-sized stadium (80,000 seats), complete with a running track and parking; two olympic-sized swimming pools, an indoor sports hall, administrative offices and a hotel for visiting teams. Placed on an north-south axis linking it to other significant infrastructures, and visible to planes landing in Khartoum International airport the SSC was to enjoy maximum visibility to the outside world. It was designed to elevate Sudanese athletics to an international stage while simultaneously projecting the image of a state invested in the development of its citizens. Historian James Ferguson has argued that the rhetoric of “development” recognises the state’s responsibility as the provider of services. However, this rhetoric is inevitably used to extend the state’s reach over its citizens. Ferguson stresses that attention should be paid not only to the results of development projects but to the ways in which the development of architecture and infrastructure (materially, economically, socially) perform as a means to entrench state control. In Sudan state control is often manifested in the tension between the centre and the periphery. The “center” in Sudan is identified by Abkr Adam Ismael as: rulers, ministers, aristocrats and male religious figures. This “center”, as Ismael identifies it, entrenches state control by exerting its dominance on the ideological, political and economic center of the country, the city of Khartoum. While critics of the project objected to the concentration of infrastructure in one single city rather than being distributed throughout the country, to many in power the concentration of resources was crucial to broadcasting the state’s patronage of its citizens.

Territorial Violence

Construction on site commenced in December 1993 following an opening ceremony attended by the president. Estimates for the initial project budget vary but later records show that a total of around $37 million was spent on the project. Following a period of 2 years construction with progress being made on site preparations and pouring concrete foundations, work onsite ground to a halt. The funds allocated for the project had been depleted. During the period from 1994 to 2007 the Sports City existed in a state of suspense, a browning husk of reinforced concrete sinking into a mountain of rubble; with pillars of rebar cages rusting in the scorching sun and its foundations frequently flooded with water and garbage.

While construction was paused, twelve percent of the area was partitioned off, by order of the president, to the International University of Africa. This was the first in a series of land grabs that saw the overall area allocated to the project shrink by a total of 73 percent. As land prices increased, successive ministry officials (10 ministers presided over the ministry during the project lifetime) facilitated the sale of the public land to private buyers. This was initially done in hopes of securing funding for the construction of the project. However, the investigative report prepared by Haj Majed Siwar, Minister of Youth and Sports in 2012 uncovered a different story. The report detailed how these land sales, all illegal under constitutional law, were not authorised by the ministry responsible but rather by prominent state officials who usurped their authority. This included the sale of thirty percent of the project site to thirteen anonymous entities, only two of which are accounted for to this day.

Progress on the project between 2004–2019

As new, unrelated construction appeared on land originally allocated for the project, its stagnation became even more conspicuous. The stark contrast between the neglected jungle of concrete foundations and the high walled villas and apartment buildings encroaching on them brought the scale of corruption and neglect to the fore. The Sports City became the icon of government corruption and incompetence, an object of ridicule. A cartoon, published in ,صحيفة التغيير depicted the land grabs as a “football field overrun by new villas and apartment buildings”. The project, for a public now disaffected by its rulers, became the object upon which state malfeasance was rendered visible.