VICE-President Chiwenga yesterday said the Harare City Council has failed football after watching Rufaro Stadium degenerate to acceptable levels to the extent it cannot host domestic topflight football matches.
Rufaro has been out of service for the past four years due to neglect and lack of maintenance by the opposition-led council.
Harare City Council’s failure and ineptitude has seen them failing to service and maintain football stadiums, particularly the ceremonial home of Zimbabwean football — Rufaro Stadium — resulting in the country’s most successful football club, Dynamos and their neighbours CAPS United, relocating to Bulawayo for the first time in decades.
Dynamos prefer Rufaro Stadium for its home matches — a stadium in which they have enjoyed record-breaking success since their formation in 1963.
In cases where Rufaro was not available, the club has over the years opted for either the National Sports Stadium across town or Gwanzura Stadium.
However, this time they have been forced to take an unprecedented move and relocate their home matches more than 400km away from their favourite hunting ground after Harare City Council reneged on several promises to get the stadium ready to host topflight football.
Most of these broken timelines and promises to get the stadium ready were made by the Harare Mayor himself, Jacob Mafume.
Addressing thousands of ruling party supporters, who thronged Mbare Netball Complex open space in Harare yesterday, Vice President Chiwenga said the electorate must rescue itself from the inefficient Harare City Council by voting for President Mnangagwa and ruling party Zanu PF council and parliamentary candidates in harmonised elections slated for August 23.
“Speaking of football, some of you are ardent sports lovers, now you are forced to travel all the way to Barbourfields Stadium in Bulawayo to watch your team — Dynamos,” said the VP amid applause from the approving crowd.
“This is a result of the Council which has failed to maintain and service Rufaro Stadium. This disheartens us a lot in Zanu PF because as Government we encourage sports and leisure.
“People would have spent their days hard at work, sometimes they need to watch football to recreate and relax,” said the VP.
In the absence of Rufaro, Dynamos and the rest of other top flight Harare teams including CAPS United Yadah FC, Black Rhinos, Herentals and Cranborne Bullets had been crammed at the National Sports Stadium for home matches at the beginning of the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season, leading to a fixture congestion that has also destroyed the turf at the giant stadium.
The grass turf just couldn’t cope with incessant use, hence the decision by the custodians of the ground to ask the PSL to scale down games to allow maintenance works to progress while the grass regenerates.
The Sports and Recreation Commission, who are managing the stadium, requested the PSL to scale down games to two per week with no spectators in the stadium.
The PSL however, decided to stop using the stadium altogether until the maintenance was complete, since playing in an empty stadium was not a viable option.
Under the Second Republic, Sports development is a key development agent as Government looks at pulling all stops to promote youths and their respective areas of excellence.