Top-flight football is back
Chippa, BCM ink deal to host top PSL games
AMEMORANDUM of understanding signed between Buffalo City Metro (BCM) and the provincial Premier Soccer League (PSL) outfit Chippa United, will see top football returning to East London.
The metro and Chippa United signed a memorandum which will see four top PSL teams playing in the city early next year for league fixtures scheduled for Mdantsane’s newly revamped Sisa Dukashe Stadium.
Topping the list of big clubs expected to play Chippa in the metro will be reigning PSL and African football champions Mamelodi Sundowns, which will play Chippa in Mdantsane on next year’s Valentines Day or February 14.
This was revealed yesterday by BCM executive mayor Xola Pakati at a media breakfast at the East London Golf Club.
Sundowns are in Asia where they are playing in the club world cup challenge with other continental champions, by virtue of them being the top team in Africa.
During yesterday’s engagement attended by various stakeholders, including those from the business fraternity, Pakati outlined his administration’s achievements after 100 days in office and the city’s plans going forward.
He said as part of building the metro’s sport tourism, they had also agreed with Chippa United that their matches against high-flying Wits University on March 15 next year, and Ajax Cape Town on May 6, would also be played at the Sisa Dukashe Stadium.
To kick off their four-match deal the Chilli Boys face Gauteng’s Highlands Park this Saturday.
“Bringing these top-flight games to our shores will definitely boost our sport tourism initiatives and will also give the city the muchneeded good publicity as some of them would be televised live, thus exposing our city to the outside world.
“They will also bring to our shores visitors who ordinarily would not have visited our city, and as a result they will come with lots of economic spin-offs in the hospitality industry and for our SMME’s [Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises],” Pakati said.
Sisa Dukashe was upgraded to meet PSL standards and recently hosted the MultiChoice Diski Challenge (MDC), where reserve teams of top PSL clubs locked horns.
Pakati yesterday said such games broadcast live by SuperSport also brought much-needed economic spin-offs for the city.
“As a result of hosting the first time ever broadcast MDC in the city, we gained the the much-needed good publicity as a city hard at work,” Pakati said.
Chippa United boss Siviwe “Chippa” Mpengesi yesterday confirmed entering into an agreement with BCM to bring the four matches.
He said the other games to take place at Sisa Dukashe were already “confirmed” by the PSL sometime back, “except for the Sundowns game which we only got a confirmation of it playing in Sisa, just this week”.
“This is going to be a test for us, because if we can bring Sundowns to Sisa, then we can in future bring Chiefs and Pirates,” Mpengesi said.
Meanwhile, Pakati said that in a bid to fast-track service delivery, BCM was “moving with speed” in filling all critical vacant posts.
In their “special recruitment drive”, he revealed that, of the 694 vacant funded posts in the metro administration, 233 had been filled, just a few months after the new administration took office.
He said 55 of the posts were promotions from within and that “we will be appointing in the remaining posts between December and January 2017”. —