By Velile Mnyandu
The planned march to Orlando Stadium, the venue for the Soweto Derby on Saturday received another major boost yesterday when it was given the green light by the JMPD to go ahead with the picketing before the Soweto Derby game between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.
The second highlight of the day for the supporters’ delegation was meeting the leadership of the Premier Soccer League (PSL), and they are believed to have engaged further about this march.
In what iDiski Times understands was a marathon of a meeting at the JMPD offices to interview the leadership of the National Football Supporters Association (NFSA) about all the details around this march on Saturday, they ended up receiving the permission to proceed with the march.
NAFSA and its members have taken a decision to march to the DStv Premiership game following the Premier Soccer League’s failure to implement the 2 000 spectator’s crowd attendance that is allowed by the government at the match venues. Sporting codes like rugby and cricket have started allowing fans already to their matches under this 2 000 spectators limit.
The South African Football Association (SAFA) during Bafana Bafana matches have been allowing the 2 000 spectators to attend their games. And recently, Mamelodi Sundowns during their CAF Champions League home game against Al Hilal of Sudan, had some spectators on the stands.
But The PSL and its members have been reluctant to implement the 2 000 spectators-rule at the venues, unofficially protesting that this would be an expensive exercise for them when it comes to security and other logistics when fans are going to be at the stadium.
Guided by the Safety at Sports and Recreational Events (SASREA) Act of 2010, clubs are required to follow clear guidelines when they are going to host spectators at the stadium and the minimum that this can cost a club is around R300 000, just for one game to organize security and other key requirements to host a match. It is believed that these are the kind of costs that the PSL and its members have been trying to avoid, at a time when the the proceeds from the 2 000 spectators will not even come close to covering the overheads.
But for the hard working NAFSA Secretary General Siyabulela Loyilane, meeting the leadership of the PSL and forging ahead with the march, makes their intentions clear for this weekend.
“The PSL has afforded us an opportunity to sit down with the Chairman Dr Irvin Khoza and the Acting CEO Ma Mato Madlala to discuss issues relating to the supporters and the march. The PSL has confirmed to us that they will be ready to receive us on Saturday,” said Loyilane.
The last time the Minister of Sport and Reaction, Nathi Mthethwa spoke about the return of the fans to the stadium and in large numbers, his department released a testament that was focusing on a staggered approach and later overtaken by the processes underway to finally end the National State of Disaster and come up with a new phase of managing the Covid-19 pandemic.
NAFSA is demanding that the stadiums must be opened to the current numbers allowed by the national command council and they can together with the stakeholders take the fight of the 50% or 75% of the crowd attendances at the stadium forward.
This march comes just after the recent one which took place in Pretoria and was led by the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) leadership, its supporters and other football stakeholders like NAFSA, South African Football Players Union (SAFPU) and some PSL club owners and officials like the AmaZulu Director Manzini Zungu.
Football fans have not watched a PSL match from the stands in large numbers since March 2020 and that was around the time when the Covid-19 outbreak started.
