The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
AFTER failing to attract fans to their matches at Barbourfields as well as Luveve over the years, Bulawayo City are looking to shift to White City Stadium as their home ground this season.
Bulawayo City chairman Jerry Sibanda said they believe that there are a lot of Amakhosi supporters in the areas surrounding White City Stadium and by taking matches there, they would ensure that the fans do not have to worry about transport issues.
He is confident that White City, which never hosted any Premier Soccer League matches in 2019 would be cleared by the Zifa First Instance Body.
“We are moving to White City, where Eagles used to play, people in that area are starved of football, if we take our matches there, we are saving them on transport costs,’’ Sibanda said.
On sponsorship, owners of the team, the Bulawayo City Council recently resolved that Ingwebu Breweries should take over as the main sponsor. However, Sibanda said they were yet to meet with the Ingwebu management to agree on the package.
Sibanda said if the funding from Ingwebu is adequate, there will be no need to seek any funding from BCC.
“As long as our sponsorship is enough from Ingwebu, we will not be getting anything from ratepayers’ money. We have got other potential sponsors, we will be disclosing them after we have concluded the deals,’’ he said.
Last year, BCC made available a total of $720 000 of rate payers’ money in the from of monthly $60 000 disbursements to Bulawayo City. Sibanda indicated that the funds coming from BCC were not adequate to last them the whole season and they had to secure a further $300 000 from other sponsors.
“We are given a grant not sponsorship in the form of monthly payments to meet costs of running the team, the money we got last year was not even enough, that’s why we requested from well-wishers who gave us $300 000.”
Bulawayo City will soon be unveiling kits that were bought for the team by Europe based well-wishers. Amakhosi will also reveal their full technical team led by returning coach Philani “Beefy” Ncube who took over from Try Ncube, the latter having left to join Mosi Rovers.
