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Ricky Zililo Senior Sports Reporter
STOCKLISTED Portland Holdings trading as Pretoria Portland Cement has brewed a shocker after it distanced itself from the Zifa Southern Region Division One Soccer League outfit Portland Cement FC.
The Cement Siding based club which won promotion into the regional league after being crowned the 2013 Zifa Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Division Two champions, were forced to cancel some of their matches due to financial constraints. The Cement Siding club only returned to action last weekend and lost 0-1 to Black Boots.

Tomorrow Portland Cement will be home to championship chasing Technosphere of Hwange.

PPC managing director Njombo Lekula said the company had no resources to fund the club but they will continue supporting grassroots sports.

“As a company we always try to uplift communities especially at grassroots level in anyway, be it academic or sporting. However, Portland Cement FC is not owned by the company as it is a professional side. The club does not have a single player working for PPC. The moment they decided to turn professional they ceased to belong to the company because football to us was for social purposes,” said Lukula.

He said he was not until recently aware that the team was promoted because they did not inform him.

Lekula said the team has always been a social team for workers and he was happy when he heard that some of the club’s committee members were company employees.

Hopes were high that PPC will be involved in football to save the ailing sport, especially in the lower divisions were clubs are finding it hard to survive. A number of companies like Mimosa Mining, Zimplats, Hwange Colliery, Zimbabwe Power Company, City of Harare, Tongaat Hullets and Innscor Africa Limited have competitive football teams and PPC as one of the few profit-making companies was expected to sponsor one.

Mimosa is bankrolling FC Platinum with Zimplats financing Ngezi Platinum FC who are in the Zifa Northern Region Division One Soccer League, Zesa have a Premiership outfit ZPC Kariba which is in the same league with Harare City, Triangle United (Tongaat Hullets), Chicken Inn FC (Innscor Africa) and How Mine.

Meanwhile, Old Nic Mine who were promoted alongside Portland Cement from the Zifa Bulawayo Metropolitan Province Division Two Soccer League travel to Hwange for a date with Hwange Juniors who are bankrolled by Hwange Colliery Company.

Tsholotsho who were on a bye last weekend are at home to New West while table toppers Ntabazinduna are inactive.

Fixtures
Tomorrow: Portland Cement v Technosphere (Cement Siding), Hwange Juniors v Old Nic Mine (Hwange), ZPC Hwange v Black Boots (Hwange), Plumtree Chiefs v Mpumalanga (White City), Tsholotsho v New West (Tsholotsho)
Sunday: Trumus v Nust (Victoria Falls)