‘Clubs can get levy relief’

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
LOCAL Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Ignatius Chombo, says levies paid by Premiership clubs to use council-owned stadiums can be slashed by as much as half what is being currently paid by the teams.However, Chombo feels the levies charged by councils should not be tackled in isolation but as part of a comprehensive package to lower the costs paid by football clubs to service providers at Premiership matches in this country.

Chombo told The Herald on Sunday that he was prepared to help the Premiership clubs get a better deal from councils, with the levy being lowered from 20 percent, of gross gate-takings, to about 10.5 percent.

Premiership clubs have been crying out, for years now, that the levies paid to councils for the use of their stadiums like Rufaro, Gwanzura and Barbourfields are too high and have been crippling their shaky financial base.

Successive Premiership leaders have tried to tackle this issue, without success, and at one stage the top clubs in Harare turned their backs on Gwanzura and Rufaro, in an effort to force the hand of the Harare City Council to revise the levy, but the boycott was short-lived.

Harare giants, the cash-cow of the league, were the first to break the alliance by returning to Rufaro for their league games.

Chombo revealed that he has met the football leadership on the issue, but nothing has been resolved for now.

“They came to me and they said we are paying 20 percent in levies to the council and that’s too much and I said we need to look at this issue, not only in terms of what they are paying to council, but what is going to all the service providers,” said Chombo.

“I said let’s get the Sports Commission to reduce the levy that they are getting, let’s get the police to reduce what they are charging for their service at the stadiums, let’s bring down what is being paid to the cashiers, let’s ensure that everything all the expenditure that is being taken out is reduced.

“If we really want to make a difference we cannot just talk about what is going to the council without looking at other levies and also looking at the possibility of bringing them down, too, so that at the end of the day we have something significant that remains in the coffers of the clubs and that can benefit the players.

“I told them that I am ready to help them get the levies they pay to council as low as 10.5 percent from 20, but the Sports Commission should also do the same and that applies to all those who are levying the clubs.

“Everything should be done in a mathematical way, even the ticketing you need a bank like CBZ to take care of that, everything done in a transparent way so that the clubs remain with significant income and that should go towards the welfare of the players because that’s an area that we need to look at very seriously.

“But they haven’t come back to me after our meeting.”

Chombo said today’s players did not carry the role model status that the yesteryear players like George Shaya, carried in the high density suburbs when they were at the peak of their powers.

“In the past, these players were employed as company salesmen, they drove cars, they were role models and their spirits were very good,” said Chombo.

“We need to go back and look at all that. We need to ensure that our players benefit from what is being generated from the gates.

“We have to look for primary school kids with talent, identify schools that can help them develop that talent whether be it in football or cricket or any other sport.

“We can take those boys that we think have talent in soccer and take them to Prince Edward, we look for teachers that can help them develop their talents and also help them academically, and they are developed as a group.

“We can also look for other schools where we can run similar programmes for football, cricket, athletics, rugby and the other sports and the good thing is that you have groups that grow together, under the same development programme, and right now we would be developing players that will be part of our national football team to play at the 2022 World Cup.

“Right now we have one good talented youngster here, the other there, the other in that town and you can see that it’s not co-ordinated and when you have a co-ordinated programme, you can get more from that.”

Chombo is also the chairman of the ZANU-PF committee on sport, culture, religion and liberation war heritage that has bemoaned the state of sport in the country with the ruling party saying more needs to be done to lift the mainstream sporting disciplines.

“We resolved that the chaos at Zifa and the PSL should be immediately dealt with,” said Chombo after sport was discussed at the ZANU-PF 14th Annual People’s Conference that ended in Chinhoyi on Saturday.

“Soccer is our national sport but its current state doesn’t justify that.

“Soccer should enjoy unlimited funding but that is not happening because sponsors can’t put in their money where they don’t know how that money is spent.”