PSL club takes first step towards building own stadium amid home venue challenges
The chairman of a PSL club has revealed plans to secure the rights to build the club’s own stadium, citing ongoing difficulties in finding venues for home matches.
Baroka FC, competing in the Motsepe Foundation Championship, are currently the only PSL club that owns and utilises its stadium, while most other clubs rely on government-owned venues.
Western Cape clubs are currently facing temporary challenges in securing home match venues for their home matches as the Betway Premiership approaches.
Athlone Stadium and Danie Craven Stadium have unsuitable playing surfaces, while DHL Stadium is unavailable due to scheduling conflicts with rugby matches.
Concerned about the long-term, Cape Town City FC chairman John Comitis has announced that the club is exploring the possibility of acquiring the rights to build its own 10,000-12,000-seater stadium.
HOME VENUE CHALLENGES FORCE PSL CLUB TO CONSIDER BUILDING ITS OWN STADIUM
“It’s difficult to manage both rugby and football on the pitch side. Let alone the availability of the stadium. That has become less and less for us,” said Comitis during the interview with SNAWA on Metro FM.
Asked if limited availability of the stadium has been caused by rugby, he added: “That is obvious, there’s a deal with them few years ago.”
“We’ve been trying to work around that; we have had 12 out of 15 games, which was adequate. But the challenges are even bigger now. We understand why.
“At the end of the day, it was the FIFA football pitch for the World Cup. And to be kind of compromised this way continuously whether on the pitch level, because of availability or the financial level because of affordability…
“For us, what we do, we’ve been asking the city to assist us in securing the rights to be able to build our own stadium, 10 000-12 000-seater.
“At what point will we be able to have that and to be able to spend money that we are going to raise to do this… We haven’t asked for financial assistance; we just want logistic assistance.
“We have set up meetings this coming week, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to start some initiative.”
Meanwhile, sharing DHL Stadium with rugby [WP Rugby and the DHL Stormers], which seems to be the first priority, has forced ‘The Citizens to move to Athlone Stadium.
However, Comitis stated they would still host big matches at the DHL Stadium.
CAPE TOWN CITY TO PLAY MORE GAMES AT ATHLONE
“And we will now going to be playing more games at Athlone [Stadium], but we need the support from the city to try and make Athlone an attractive [venue] for the fans.
“We’re trying to come up with an initiative which we will disclose when we have had a meeting with the offices of the city. That will happen this week.
“Hopefully, we come up with an initiative to attract our fans to Athlone, and we will still play our key big games at the Cape Town Stadium, of course”
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