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IT is sad that Sakubva Stadium — the province’s ceremonial home of football — has been suspended once again from hosting Premier Soccer League matches.
This is not the first time that football followers in Manicaland have been subjected to this situation as it has happened on a number of occasions before.
Yes, there are some glaring misgivings on the part of those who make decisions to approve or suspend match venues across the country when it comes to their heavy-handed approach towards Manicaland’s biggest football match venue.
No so long ago, August 2017 to be precise, Dynamos played against Chapungu in a match that ended prematurely at Ascot Stadium in Gweru after a goalpost collapsed.
The Premier Soccer League did not only order the match to be finished for the remaining 39 minutes on a later date, but also presided over other league matches that were played at the same venue until the end of that year.
Somehow, for Sakubva, it is a different story and only heavens know why it is always easy for the national football administrators to come down hard on the match venue in their decision making processes.
The deafening silence by First Instance Body (FIB) and PSL on why Sakubva Stadium was suspended and what needs to be done is just too loud to go unnoticed.
The media, just like fans, had to be content with just a routine fixtures notice that showed Vengere Stadium as the home ground for teams that used to host their opponents at Sakubva Stadium.
In the absence of official communication from PSL and FIB, not even the grapevine postulations that the FIB’s recent inspection noted that the turf at Sakubva Stadium is no longer fit for top-flight league football gives credence to the decision to suspend the match venue.
While it is true that the turf had greatly suffered due to overuse in recent months, it is also equally true that after remedial action was taken with all the clubs that were using Sakubva Stadium for daily training sessions being asked to find alternative football grounds, the turf has greatly improved.
Therefore, was the suspension warranted?
However, we need not pay a blind eye to the reluctance by the custodians of the stadium — City of Mutare — in addressing some long standing issues relating to the wellbeing of Sakubva Stadium.
We all know and appreciate that the local authority did a good job by constructing new changing rooms, a conference room as well as the precast wall, but the acquisition of substandard goalposts is something we least expected from professionals in the country’s fourth biggest city.
The local authority’s decision to allow three teams to use the facility for training sessions on a daily basis and then go ahead to have competitive league matches every Sunday and Saturday — a retrogressive act that led to the deterioration of the turf — only shows us how far we are from being serious about preserving the beauty and quality of the match venue.
It is mind-boggling to fathom how the custodians of the stadium ever thought they would be able to carry out meaningful maintenance works on the pitch when local teams are always using it for training sessions as well as weekend competitive matches.
What hurts the most is the fact that at the end of the day it is the game of football in Manicaland that suffers the most since the order to have home matches at Vengere Stadium in Rusape presents additional costs to Mutare based teams.
For now, we can only wait and see when the refurbishments requested by FIB will be done and possibly witness Premiership football returning to Sakubva Stadium.
Online Reporter