We are still waiting for the City of Cape Town to confirm or deny whether they have invited Kaizer Chiefs to play three of their home games at the Cape Town Stadium.
The spin is that the City wants to make the former World Cup venue in Green Point “more financially viable” – but all the exercise of bringing Chiefs here will do is further alienate Cape football. The perception (or should that be reality) is that the City is sending a big, big “up-yours” to football clubs and footballers who live, breathe, eat and slave in this city.
We know the City is struggling to make the stadium work – or is the agenda political? Nevertheless, it’s another case of smug officials being completely out of tune with the sport.
Cape Town has hundreds of amateur football clubs and tens of thousands of amateur footballers – the most in the country. It has promising, ambitious teams in the Third, Second and First Divisions, and one in the elite Premier Soccer League (PSL). Yet, except for the use of grounds across the region, including Cape Town and Athlone Stadiums, which, of course is its duty as a public service to provide, ask any club or player what this City has done to aid the progress and development of football and they will say “Nothing”.
As Siviwe Mpengesi, the owner of Chippa United, told me in an interview just before he relocated his Philippi-based club to Port Elizabeth: “Football just doesn’t talk to Cape Town, and by that I include the government of the province and the city.”
Ask any other club boss or chairman in the City – be that amateur or professional – and they will echo that sentiment. When Cape football knocks on the City’s door, it opens ever so slightly, just to peek at who has had the audacity to knock, and then it shuts it firmly, and rudely…
Now, however, with their backs to the wall, under pressure after the disaster of the Cape Town Cup (which, by the way, was of their own making), the City seems to see Chiefs as some kind of stop-gap solution. Because, let’s face it, the Cape Town Cup could have worked, if only the City had consulted with Cape football – including Safa-CT and local clubs – but, in its egotistical wisdom it failed, yet again, to connect with Capetonians.
And this will keep on happening as long as the professional business of operating the stadium is run by amateur public officials with – to add again – political agendas.
Getting the City to admit that Chiefs have been invited has been a frustrating exercise in obfuscation, which, needless to say, leads to speculation about the real motives behind the current dalliance with the Soweto side.
So, let’s look at the process. According to PSL rules, by July 31 each year, clubs have to nominate a home venue and an alternate. Chiefs have nominated the FNB Stadium in Joburg, with their alternate venue being the Cape Town Stadium. Really?
That, alone, proves that Chiefs’ negotiation with the City has been ongoing for quite a while. And, what’s more, the Joburg team was so confident that the deal was a fait accompli that they were perfectly content to name Cape Town as their other venue.
Now, as the most popular and best-supported football club in the country, rest assured Chiefs are not coming down here for nothing. They will demand quite a hefty appearance fee. The Gauteng club has, of course, done this before, in that it has previously taken some of its home games to Polokwane or Port Elizabeth (for which they easily picked up in the region of R1-1,5 million per game – and that’s just as an appearance fee).
But have a glance at Chiefs’ record in the Mother City, results-wise, and it doesn’t make for satisfactory reading. If they have any designs on retaining their PSL title, Cape Town should be the last place they wish to play a few home games – because, with their inconsistent record here, they run the risk of dropping unnecessary points. Therefore, the very reason that Chiefs want to come here (or, indeed, are coming here) suggests that the City has made it worth their while. Question: Where is the money coming from?
And, as we have already seen with the ill-fated Cape Town Cup, the City has no idea how to market and promote a football event, nor how to engage with the ordinary man in the street when it comes to sport.
Ajax Cape Town, the Mother City’s PSL club, are understandably livid. After years and years of trying to make things work in the Cape, of more than a decade of creating a professional environment for talented young kids in the region to grow their game as footballers, the region in which the club resides would rather entertain a Gauteng club. As Ajax chief executive Ari Efstathiou says: “It’s a snub for Cape Town and Capetonians. This is a stadium built by the residents, for the people of Cape Town, and now the city is inviting an outside team to use the ground.”
Remember that, with Chiefs’ support-base, an Ajax-Chiefs fixture in the Cape is a big money-spinner for Ajax. It’s the one game the Parow club can rely on to generate some money for its coffers.
If Chiefs are coming here to play three of their home games, they will be in Cape Town for four games, which means there are no guarantees for Ajax. As such, Efstathiou and Ajax are already in the process of moving their fixture against Chiefs – on September 26 – to Port Elizabeth or East London (at great cost in terms of hire, travel and accommodation). Crazy, isn’t it? Cape club plays outside of the city; Joburg club invited to use Cape Town Stadium.
It’s a sad state of affairs. Football in this country is already overwhelmingly skewed in favour of Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. They lure the sponsors, they dominate the market… while other clubs scrounge to pick up the scraps left behind and try to make do as best they can, Chiefs and Pirates continue to get stronger, aided and abetted, of course, by the politically-correct climate that dominates everything in this country.
Yet, this very city in which we reside, where the City does very little to assist local football, it now wants to welcome, with open arms and enrich a team from another province – a club with its roots, allegiances and tax money in Gauteng.
So can the City please answer us? Are Chiefs coming here or not? Cape football clubs would love to know whether the up-yours is pointed in their direction? - Cape Argus