Editorial Comment: At last, common sense has prevailed

14 Jun, 2019 - 00:06 0 Views
Editorial Comment: At last, common sense has prevailed A section of the renovated VIP area of Vengere Stadium

The ManicaPost

News that the Premier Soccer League has at long last allowed Vengere Stadium in Rusape to be used as Manica Diamonds’ home ground was like music to the ears of many followers of the game of football across Manicaland province.

This came after weeks of Manica Diamonds pleading and prodding authorities in the game of football to let them use the Rusape sports facility as their home ground.

The issue even earned the attention of Minister of State for Manicaland Affairs Dr Ellen Gwaradzimba, who also expressed discontent over what largely appeared to be a cruel decision by those running the domestic top flight league.

For a good 11 weeks’ period, football fans in Mutare have not been able to watch Manica Diamonds in action as they could hardly afford a trip to and from Triangle where the team was using Gibo Stadium as their home ground.

It also meant that Manica Diamonds would get next to nothing on gate takings as residents of Triangle opted to save their hard-earned money to pay to watch their own team — Triangle FC — rather than Manica Diamonds, a team that was just using their well maintained sports facility by chance.

Manica Diamonds’ players were also left on the receiving end as they had no time to rest, with away fixtures week-in week-out.

Elsewhere in this newspaper, we carry the story on PSL approval of Vengere Stadium as a Premiership match venue and how the development has left Manica Diamonds and their fans heaving a huge sigh of relief.

It is sad that in all the drama that has been unfolding before us about Vengere Stadium, the biggest loser in all that fiasco was the game of football and not the egoistic personalities we saw flexing muscles for each other.

It is the people of Mutare and Manicaland that had to make do with a Premiership team they call their own but hardly ever had a chance to watch it on the field of play as Manica Diamonds continued playing their home games some 350km away from home at Gibo Stadium in Triangle.

Lest we forget, this is not the first time that the people of Manicaland have been disadvantaged when it comes to hosting Castle Lager Premier Soccer League matches.

At one point, the now defunct Mutare-based Eastern Lions had a torrid time to get approval to use Sakubva Stadium back then as football politics prevailed over the good of the game.

What is crystal clear to us this time around, just like in the past experiences with Sakubva Stadium, is the fact that there was more to this Vengere Stadium drama than meets the eye.

While we all appreciate the need to meet and maintain world class standards of our football match venues in line with the Fifa Club Licensing demands, we still have unanswered questions over the stadium inspection criteria.

Why is the FIB being let to inspect stadiums if PSL eventually has the temerity to decide where to allocate their fixtures and where not to?

We hope the continued refusal of the use of Vengere Stadium as a Premiership match venue, more importantly as Manica Diamonds’ home ground, was not a result of underhand dealings involving influential figures in our football who might not have wanted to see Manica Diamonds turning Vengere Stadium into an impenetrable fortress.

It is in that context that we feel duty bound to remind domestic football authorities that Manicaland is a part of Zimbabwe that deserves to be treated with same kind of respect that they give even to their regions of origin.

We sincerely hope that this was all about football and now that the match venue will host its first top flight league encounter in the 2019 season on Sunday, we will let sleeping dogs lie and only wish Manica Diamonds good luck against Ngezi Platinum.

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