Zimpapers Logo

Mr Christopher Dube

Vusumuzi Dube, Sports Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has indicated its intentions to reduce the fees it charges football clubs for use of its stadia. This would come as a huge relief to football clubs based in the city, as they have constantly raised concerns over the high levies.

Highlanders use Barbourfields Stadium as their home ground, while Chicken Inn and How Mine share Luveve Stadium, and Tsholotsho use White City Stadium.According to BCC spokesperson Nesisa Mpofu, the local authority charges $692.34 for the use of White City and Luveve stadiums, with $599.04 going towards stadium hire, $89.85 charged as value added tax (VAT), $3 as administration costs and $0.45 VAT for administration costs.

For Barbourfields Stadium, BCC charges Highlanders 20 percent of gate takings because they “pull big crowds”, while other clubs have to fork out $2 299.77 to hire the same ground.

Newly appointed Bulawayo town clerk Christopher Dube said reviewing stadia hire charges would be one of his major tasks, as he was aware of numerous complaints raised by football clubs.

Dube also said council was going to look at a number of issues surrounding its stadia, including maintenance costs after which it will consider revising charges downwards.

“When I was still with the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing some time ago, I remember we made a decision to reduce rentals for use of the National Sports Stadium and basing from that experience, it won’t be much of a burden to reduce the current charges,” said Dube.

“What will happen now is that we will look at how much we are spending on maintaining the various stadiums after which we will then come up with a figure that will ensure that we break even at the end of the day,” he said.

He said he would maintain an open door policy and constantly engage football clubs in the city during the process of reviewing the charges.

“Soccer is a part of the city and it helps us achieve our objective as a local authority of providing social activities for our residents, hence they should not be any bad blood between us and football clubs,” he said.

The local authority has over the past few years faced the wrath of teams based in the city, who accused it of unfairly milking them by demanding high rentals while not maintaining the stadia.

Highlanders have previously written to the city fathers asking council to review the 20 percent levy on gate takings at Barbourfields Stadium, but their request has constantly been turned down.

@vusadb