Black Leopards Football Club and the Thulamela Municipality are at loggerheads. The centre of the whole controversy is the closure of the Thohoyandou Stadium for refurbishment purposes. The closure of the stadium means that Lidoda duvha will be using the Giyani Stadium as their home ground until further notice.

Their first match at the new venue was played on Wednesday this weekend. The Thohoyandou outfit locked horns with Supersport United.

Although Leopards are fully supporting the idea of closing down the stadium for renovation purposes, they are not happy with the decision to close it at the time when the starting date for the refurbishment process is still not yet known.

In an interview, the club’s brand manager, Tshifhiwa Thidiela, revealed that the relationship between his club and the municipality has never been good. He stated that, at some stage, they were denied entrance to the stadium for training purposes.

According to Thidiela, the municipality should have closed the stadium at the time when they were about kick-start the process of renovation. He accused the municipality of cruelty, saying their decision to close the stadium is a thorn in the flesh to the people who were surviving by selling food at the stadium during the team’s home matches.

When responding to the accusations, the sports and recreation officer in the municipality, Mr Ronald Makhadi, stated that the closure for the stadium was a decision taken by the provincial legislature. He further indicated that the team would still not use the stadium even if it was not closed at this stage, saying it was now in such a bad condition the club would not be comfortable to use it as their home ground.

Makhadi concurred with Thidiela when it comes to the relationship between the two parties. According to Makhadi, the club owes the municipality a huge amount of money which accumulated from the 15% gate income which the club is supposed to pay to the municipality each time they use the Thohoyandou Stadium for their home matches.

When responding to that, Thidiela said that he was not aware of the fact that his club owed the municipality any money, saying they were prepared to settle the debt as a matter of urgency if the municipality could prove that. He revealed that they had taken the matter to the Vhembe District Municipality and that they were going to request the premier of the province to intervene if things came to a push.