Kaizer Chiefs have opted to play their MTN8 semi-final first leg against AmaZulu at Moses Mabhida Stadium early next month, iDiski Times has been informed.
Chiefs were initially kicked out of FNB Stadium due to World Tour of the United States of America musician Justin Bieber. The musician was said to be coming to South Africa and was going to perform at the 2010 World Cup final venue on 1 October, the same day as the MTN8 semi-final first leg will take place, but he announced this week that the tour is cancelled due to his health reasons.
However, despite Bieber no longer coming to SA, Chiefs will not go back to FNB Stadium but will go ahead with their plans to play the game in Durban. Moses Mabhida Stadium is Chiefs’ alternative venue, and the club will play a few home matches there until the end of the season.
They have already played one game at Moses Mabhida, beating Richards Bay 1-0 in the league match last month. This means AmaZulu will not move, as their MTN8 semi-final second leg will also be played at Moses Mabhida Stadium.
Interestingly, the last time Chiefs won the Wafa Wafa Cup was at the same venue in the 2014-15 season, beating Orlando Pirates in the final.
Moses Mabhida Stadium management Vusi Mazibuko was elated that the venue will be busy this season, after two years the venue wasn’t used due to the Covid-19.
“We come from a tough two years where we weren’t able to watch football in the stadium,” said Mazibuko to iDiski Times.
“The football industry financially suffered. We can talk about ticket sales, people who are selling outside the stadium, people who are selling merchandise, people who are doing advertisements, the entire value chain of the sport was affected by Covid.”
Other clubs who have declared their interest to play matches at the venue are Royal AM and Richards Bay. Royal AM will play their CAF Confederation Cup home matches at Moses Mabhida after Chatsworth Stadium was deemed not fit to meet CAF’s standards.
Richards Bay will also play their home matches against the so called big three – Chiefs, Orlando Pirates and Mamelodi Sundowns – at the 2010 World Cup venue.
“We as the stadium management, we are excited that when the government opened stadiums to full capacity we had five teams in KwaZulu-Natal participating in the DStv Premiership flight (after Bay was promoted from Motsepe Foundation Championship last season),” added Mazibuko.
“This has increased the content of football then it was before, especially at Moses Mabhida Stadium.”
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
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