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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter
GIANTS Dynamos are confident they will play their CAF Confederation Cup matches at their favourite Rufaro home ground when they return to continental football next year.
DeMbare, just like the national team that was recently forced to play their 2026 FIFA World Cup home qualifier against Nigeria at an alternative venue in Rwanda, currently do not have a home ground for their continental assignments.
The Confederation of African Football have condemned all the local venues after they failed to meet the minimum standards required to host international matches.
But DeMbare vice-chairman Vincent Chawonza revealed during The Couch programme aired on ZTN Prime on Wednesday evening that Rufaro stadium has had significant renovations this year and could be ready for use by the time the CAF games kick off in August.
“We have toured Rufaro stadium together with the City of Harare officials and a CAF representative to see what needs to be done.
“I am very confident that when we play the CAF Confederation Cup we will play all the matches at Rufaro as our home ground because all the toilets are done; the changing room for the home team is done and for the away team it’s about 95 percent complete.
“What’s left is the changing room for the referees. But, the guy from CAF told us that the bucket seats could be the only sticking issue.
“The City of Harare has ordered 1 000 seats. So, he said if you install those 1 000 seats then they can tick that box as work in progress and then we can play our games there.
“It’s not about the whole stadium. Even if you look at that Stadium where the Warriors played in Rwanda, it wasn’t the whole stadium that had bucket seats.
“He said if those 1 000 seats come and they see that there is progress towards that, that will be the only sticking issue,” said Chawonza.
CAF stadium Inspector Joshua Knipp was in the country recently to inspect the National Sports Stadium and Rufaro Stadium and made recommendations.
The CAF inspection team was concerned with areas such as the tunnel used by the players, the changing rooms, the toilets, the lack of bucket seats and electronic turnstiles among a catalogue of areas of improvement.
DeMbare, who celebrate their 60th anniversary this year, are planning to have their own facilities, including owning a stadium in the future.
“We have plans to own our own stadium,” said Chawonza.
“We have had a meeting with the Minister of Local Government and we have been offered land that we are going to use to build our DeMbare Village, which will have a stadium.
“But you will appreciate that not all teams own stadiums, even in England. You can see that some certain teams lease stadiums.
“We have applied for a 10-year lease along with our brothers from CAPS United, where we will have some shops for the club as well as other things at Rufaro,” said Chawonza.
The stadium issue has been a major challenge to the Premier Soccer League in the last few years. Most of the venues that used to host topflight football are in ruins, with Rufaro closed for the last four years while Gwanzura has been out of use for a much longer period.
Eight teams in Harare shared the National Sports Stadium when the season started. A team like Manica Diamonds had to travel outside Mutare to play their home matches the whole season due to the crisis.
The Premier Soccer League have appealed to stadium owners to attend to the infrastructure.
This comes as Government has also allocated a $136.2 billion budget for the construction and rehabilitation of facilities in the 2024 national budget presentation.
PSL chairman Farai Jere highlighted that the shortage of facilities has been a major challenge.
“This season we face stadium challenges across the country due to the failure by some stadiums to meet the required conditions, forcing some teams to play their home matches away from home.
“I would like to thank the government of Zimbabwe, His Excellency President Mnangagwa, for availing funds amounting to $136bn for the renovation of stadiums.
“We also appreciate the efforts made by some of our clubs building and renovating their facilities,” said Jere.
Online Reporter