adminSamuel Kadungure Senior Sports Reporter
RUSAPE Town Council will have to race against time to renovate and spruce up Vengere Stadium to meet the Premier Soccer League standards and make it possible for Dongo Sawmills to use it as their home ground. The league kicks off in the first week of March and it remains to be seen if the facelift would have been completed for the town’s adopted premiership side to launch its artillery from home turf.
A Rusape Town Council special full council meeting last week unanimously voted to upgrade the stadium, despite such works not having been budgeted for in 2015.
The council had delayed renovating the stadium because it does not feature under its Social Services Capital Projects for 2015 — and as such it required a properly convened full council meeting to pass a legitimate resolution — justifying the virement of funds, budgeted for other purposes, towards upgrading the stadium.
Unfortunately, soccer fans viewed the delays as sabotage.
Time is no longer on the council’s side to start renovations, which must either meet or exceed the league’s expectations, to allow Dongo Sawmills to continue using the stadium.
The team has an option of either using Sakubva or Rudhaka stadiums.
The team is relatively unknown in Mutare and Marondera and such a move entails huge losses as Vengere Stadium is ranked above the two stadiums in terms of support and lucrativeness.
Rusape Town Secretary Joshua Maligwa on Wednesday revealed that his council had allocated $60 000, which was meant for other projects, towards the rehabilitation of Vengere Stadium.
Maligwa said the amount was not adequate, and appealed to Dongo Sawmills and the local business community to chip in to make the project viable.
“We had not budgeted for the renovation of the stadium in 2015 because by the time we did our budget consultations and agreed with the residents, we had no such request from Dongo Sawmills FC.
“Our preliminary calculations show that if we are to do all that the PSL had request to be done, at least $130 000 will be needed. As council our social services projects for the whole year was $110 000.
“We then agreed as council to channel $60 000 which is enough to meet minimal requirements, hoping that Dongo Sawmills and the local business fraternity will come on board. We need to meet halfway,” said Maligwa.
“We are going to work on the precast wall, open a new main entrance. We are also required to open seven new entry points around the stadium. We are going to erect a VIP section, perimeter fence, public toilets, changing rooms for both home and visiting teams, cash reconciliation room and changing rooms for the referees.
“We will in the meanwhile forego luxurious requirements by the PSL which include media centre, installation of internet and other facilities. A catalogue of PSL requirements require huge capital injection and we cannot afford as Rusape Town Council,” explained Maligwa.
Maligwa said those willing to enter into some Public Private Partnerships with the local authority were welcome.
The development has come as good news to Dongo Sawmills, which was in a quandary as to which home ground they will use next season.
Dongo Sawmills technical team led by head coach Shaddy ‘‘Father’’ Mugurasave is winding up trials and has assembled a bloated provisional squad of largely greenhorns out of which they will pick their arsenal for the 2015 season.
They still have a month to drill the players as well as add tried and tested reinforcements.
The only notable names training with Dongo Sawmills include Evans Chikwaikwai and Dylan Chiwandire.
“We are really not interested in those big names because we feel we will be suppressing these youngsters. We are focusing on giving promising youngsters a chance to prove themselves. Yes, we are inundated with calls from big names, and we are not just going to call them in for the sake of it.
“We will look at individual cases and assess what value those knocking on our door will add to the team,” said Mugurasave.
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