Makhado Municipality and Safa Vhembe bumped heads over Rabali Stadium

When the Makhado Municipality recently renovated Rabali Stadium, the sporting fraternity welcomed the initiative as they thought it would help them immensely. Some of the teams and associations are now complaining, however, that the fees to use the stadium make it impossible to stage local matches.

The municipality has allegedly increased the fees for using the stadium to such an extent that they are out of reach of local teams, especially those operating under the aegis of Safa Vhembe. This follows not long after the stadium was renovated at a cost of roughly R7 million. The money was made available via a grant received from the National Lotteries Board.

Safa Vhembe was supposed to use the stadium during the MMK Insurance Brokers promotional play-off matches, but the matches had to be moved to Makwarela Stadium. This meant that the teams had to travel more than 100 kilometres to play their matches in another municipality.

The chairperson of the competition committee for Safa Vhembe, Mr Mulimisi Muneri, said that he was very disappointed to hear what the fees were when they applied to use the Rabali stadium. According to him, the Makhado Municipality charged them R12 000 to use the stadium during the promotional play-offs. “We thought such facilities would play the role of taking children away from the streets and taking them to the sporting fields, but with such high rates, this is difficult to achieve,” he said.

Madombidzha Western Stars MD Mr Mashudu Mulaudzi also expressed his disappointment. “This arrogance and disrespect that is being displayed by the political leaders of Makhado Municipality is not helping the community,” he said. “The municipality is ignoring us and our pleas,” he added. “Now we want the municipality to tell us if it is nation building if we are forced to play games outside the municipality while we live in Makhado,” Mulaudzi added.

Makhado Municipality spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi denied that the municipality had charged Safa Vhembe R12 000 to use the stadium. He said that the municipality supplied Safa Vhembe with two quotations, namely R2 085,90 if used by amateur teams and R8 000 if used by professional teams. Of these amounts, R1 585,90 is refundable (amateur teams) or R5 000 is refundable if professional teams play at the stadium. Bobodi said the municipality and Safa Vhembe must meet as soon as possible to resolve the problems.

Mr Ronald Makhadi, manager of sport at Thulamela Municipality, said the federation paid a fee of  R460 per year. He said that as the municipality they allowed the federation to utilise the stadium the whole year without paying any other amount.

Sport - Date: 17 July 2014

Kaizer Nengovhela

Kaizer Nengovhela started writing stories for Limpopo Mirror in 2000. Prior to that he had a five year stint at Phala-Phala FM as sports presenter. In 2005 Kaizer received an award from the province's premier as Best Sports Presenter. The same year he was also nominated as Best Sports Reporter by the Makhado Municipality. Kaizer was awarded the Mathatha Tsedu award in 2014.

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