Johannesburg: The Democratic Republic of Congo may have to play home World Cup qualifiers away from Kinshasa after being given an ultimatum to fix security infrastructure at the capital's Martyrs stadium, FIFA said.

The Congolese federation have been asked to name an alternate venue because FIFA are not satisfied that changes to improve the safety at the stadium had been implemented.

The Congolese, who qualified for the 1974 World Cup finals when the country was known as Zaire, had promised to make the changes and had been given until yesterday to provide such a guarantee, FIFA said.

FIFA have twice inspected the giant Chinese-built 80 000 capacity stadium, first at the end of 2006 and again last October.

Visiting teams traditionally find the venue intimidating and the Congolese rarely lose competitive matches at home.

During the first visit, a list of requirements related to necessary improvements in infrastructure and security was established and given to the FECOFA, a FIFA spokesman said.

During the second visit, it was seen that the improvements had not been accomplished in a satisfactory way. As an exceptional measure, FIFA indicated to the Congolese federation that we would be willing to have a third inspection visit in early May, but that we would request a written guarantee to be sent by April 4 from both the Ministry of Sports and the federation that the works described during the first FIFA inspection visit would be carried out before May.

Source : UNI