The ManicaPost
SO it is looking increasingly highly unlikely that Sakubva Stadium, Mutare’s celebrated home of football, will host any matches this season!
The match venue remains unavailable due to the ongoing refurbishments on the facility following an assessment by the elite league’s chiefs and subsequent disapproval by the First Instance Board (FIB) comprising Zifa and Premier Soccer League officials. The PSL inspection team raised the red flag on the facility for the umpteenth time owing to its dilapidated state.
Since last season, this consequently forced the city’s resident teams to seek alternative venues elsewhere; with Mutare City Rovers – our then Premiership representatives – having turned to Vengere in Rusape. Buffaloes, Tenax and Manica Diamonds all used Mutare Boys’ High School grounds – which bore a huge strain – for their Eastern Region Division One matches. Rovers are, interestingly, owned by Mutare City Council.
The holdup on Sakubva is, however, set to persist with revelations that the continuing renovations – which had disappointingly lagged on for over a year – have since stopped owing to resources constraints, chief among them cement.
This leaves Vengere as the only other viable option available. But, sadly, questions now hang over the Rusape stadium also after a recent preliminary inspection by the PSL condemned the venue for failing to satisfy the rudimentary standards required to stage top-flight matches. Several coaches – notably Highlanders and Ngezi Platinum Stars’ – last term complained lividly about Vengere’s undulating turf, which they argued was not suitable for a contemporary facility and made playing difficult.
At least four other stadiums – apart from Sakubva and Vengere – Rufaro (Harare), Nyamhunga (Kariba), Trojan (Bindura) and Luveve (Bulawayo) have so far also fallen short during the opening round check by the top-flight mother body and are now racing against time to be revamped before the next FIB proper inspection.
Areas that have been cited as being in need of sprucing up include the playing surface, pitch perimeter structures, drainage system, upgrading of dressing rooms, improvements on ablution facilities and construction of media, medical and anti-doping rooms among several others.
With the 2019 campaign set to kick off in three weeks and the league fixtures already out, will the authorities or custodians whose stadiums have been denounced complete the recommended works on the facilities in time so they become usable?
This throws Manica Diamonds in a quandary as they face a Catch-22 situation to identify an apposite home ground. On a technicality, they shall virtually be playing “away” yet they will be at home.
This is when home is not so homely.
Sakubva’s condemnation hardly comes as a surprise as the stadium has been denounced on previous several occasions and largely lied idle last term. This has evidently become the elephant in the room for the Eastern border city. To further put off followers of the game there appears to be no definite timelines the stadium is earmarked for completion.
And many football enthusiasts are disenchanted.
But, commendably, Mutare City Council are keeping their shoulders on the grinding wheel.
“Construction has stopped because we are in the process of procuring the materials required . . . Council is very much committed to completing Sakubva Stadium renovations and our efforts on the ground with regards to precast wall construction speak volumes to that effect . . . It is our desire that we complete the stadium (renovations) and make it functional (again),” the local authority’s spokesperson Spren Mutiwi was quoted as telling this publication last month.
To avert football pitches turning into “potato fields”, as outspoken gaffer Moses “Bambo” Chunga once described Trojan, the Fifa Club Licensing system’s “infrastructure” stipulation – one of four other key areas – lucidly spells out that stadiums must be safe and comfortable for fans, families and the media as well as boasting proper training facilities.
Last season even Zifa Eastern Region – where Manica Diamonds competed in 2018 – chairman Davison Muchena came clean that some of the match venues hosting their league games were poor and unacceptably below par.
“Generally, the state of our stadia is not pleasing at all. That is a fact. We have been engaging our clubs with the aim of encouraging them to upgrade their stadia to meet the required standards. While we all know that it is difficult out there given that the costs involved are exorbitant, we will continue working closely with our clubs to see to it that the state of our stadia is improved,” Muchena was quoted as saying.
These clubs need home comforts!
Are they there and will they get them?
If it is about football that you care let’s share the cheer because we are made for the game, mad about the game!
Feedback:
The transfergate saga involving suspended Manica Diamonds executive committee members Lazarus Muhoni [now resigned] and Lloyd Chinawa is boiling. I am meant to believe that the EcoCash messages showing transactions between them and the players will be used against them to nail them. They should have avoided such conduct even if their intentions were good because they may get convicted on the technically of the evidence at hand. – Tawanda Mhlanga, Dangamvura.
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