13 000 pay for big match

A total of 12 840 fans paid to watch the Highlanders and Dynamos match played at Barbourfields Stadium on Sunday.

The figure is lower than the previous encounter between the teams, which attracted 13 413 paying fans in September 2023.

The match was abandoned in the 37th minute after crowd trouble.

This time around, the two giants played in an incident-free match, which was won 2-1 by Highlanders.

The Premier Soccer League (PSL), has praised all stakeholders involved in ensuring the match was held in a peaceful environment.

PSL chief executive officer, Kenny Ndebele yesterday conducted a review meeting at a local hotel in a bid to pick up and share the positives and negatives from the big game played on Sunday.

**Fans queue to enter Barbourfields Stadium on Sunday**

“I think it’s important that every time you have an event you do a review and analysis that way, we then see how we can improve future events. So it was important that we meet the key stakeholders after the event that is the ZRP, Bulawayo City Council, volunteers, club representatives to sit down and review the proceedings.

“We had a meeting before the match and we wanted to see if we had managed to achieve what we had discussed in the meeting pre-match.

“The objectives were to provide a safe, secure environment and make the match enjoyable. We all agree it’s kudos to everyone, the media, security, clubs coaches and above all the fans for the way the event proceeded and ended,” said Ndebele.

He went on to thank everyone involved in ensuring the game was played in a safe environment.

“We want to thank the entire sports fraternity for the successful event. For us, we promise to deliver. We have just renewed our three-year partnership with Delta Beverages. Once you secure a sponsorship, the most difficult part is the retention side of it and delivering on set objectives. Having matches that are played with no incidents of crowd trouble, is one area that we are happy and sure all sport-loving people are happy with the progress because such matches are your flagship matches and watched by thousands of people, so it’s important to organise them in a safe secure and enjoyable environment,” said Ndebele.

Ndebele said one of the issues of concern from stakeholders was the prohibition of water bottles.

He said it will be addressed.

“On objects that are seen to be potential missiles, it’s something that has been raised that there was no adequate water as we did not allow water bottles because we stood by that objective. We had good suggestions that we will pursue,” said Ndebele. — @innocentskizoe