Online Reporter
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
SAKUBVA Stadium has become Mutare’s own Strait of Hormuz – a flashpoint of propaganda and power play.
On one side stands Mutare City Council, the custodians of the facility; on the other, Manica Diamonds, the city’s sole Premiership team.
And caught in the middle, just like the global masses enduring the pain of soaring fuel prices when the Strait of Hormuz is closed, are Mutare’s football fans, starved of top-flight action.
But the question lingers: who is really fooling who?
The ordinary football-loving resident of Mutare has been told that Sakubva Stadium is undergoing renovations to meet CAF and FIFA standards, hence its inability to host this year’s Castle Lager Premiership fixtures.
Yet, to the naked eye, little to nothing has been done that justifies such prolonged closure.
Four rounds of the 2026 season have already passed, and now the same fans are told a different story: Mutare City Council has allowed Manica Diamonds to use Sakubva Stadium, but only if they repair a small kitchen attached to the changing rooms. The cost? A mere US$500.
Instead of fixing the kitchen, Manica Diamonds chose the punishing option of playing “home” matches more than 500km away at Gibbo Stadium in Triangle. For the fans, this feels less like football administration and more like theatre – a stage where promises, excuses, and contradictions play out, while the game itself disappears from their city.
As the blame game unfolds, there are things that the same common man on the street, an avid football follower of Mutare, has deliberately not been told.
Mutare City Council ostensibly wrote to ZIFA indicating that Sakubva Stadium will not be available to host Castle Lager Premiership matches this year because they intended to spruce up the facility, but after engagements by local football lovers through the Office of the Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, did the local authority write to ZIFA again to inform the football mother body that Premiership matches can be played until such a time when renovations and competitive matches can coexist?
With the great love of sport that this local authority has shown, epitomised by the introduction of a sports levy on ratepayers, for the sake of sports development and inclusive participation by its residents, did the local authority need to summon Manica Diamonds hierarchy, as widely circulated on social media, for a meeting or simply needed to inform ZIFA to come down and inspect the facility for approval to host matches?
Is the condition to have the small kitchen apartment repaired by Manica Diamonds if the club is to host its matches at Sakubva Stadium necessary given that no one cooks food at Sakubva Stadium before matches, not even coaches, players, referees, security and sports journalists?
When the ZIFA First Instance Body (the ZIFA arm that inspects facilities) came down to Mutare to inspect Manica Diamonds offices and Sakubva Stadium, why did the Mutare City Council Sports Officer, Norman Nyaude, turn away Manica Diamonds staff that went to Sakubva Stadium to witness the inspection if the local authority was sincere in letting the club play its home matches at the facility until renovation could no longer coexist with competitive matches?
On that occasion, Nyaude insisted the ZIFA inspection had nothing to do with Manica Diamomds as it was meant to guide Mutare City Council on what needed to be done to renovate the facility to meet CAF and FIFA standards.
Both Mutare City Council Town Clerk, Blessing Chafesuka and Manica Diamonds chairman, Masimba Chihowa were not available for comment as their mobile remained unreachable for the greater part of the week, with Chafesuka being said to be off duty.
Be that as it may, fans continue feeling the pain without anyone to assist in their cause.
Prominent Mutare football fan, Hellen Gurure, better known in football circles as Mai Badza or Mbuya Nhema, said: “This is a sad development in the history of football in Manicaland.
It reminds me of the old days when we did not have any Premiership team here in Mutare, and we only looked up to Dynamos when the club came down once a year to play their friendly matches at Sakubva Stadium.
“What pains me the most is that this generation is being cruel to its children who could have benefited from this platform called Manica Diamonds. Some of us are no longer siring children, we have gone past that age, but we only love the game of football.”
