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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
FC PLATINUM management is still deliberating on the venue the club will use for the Total Caf Champions League, as there is still uncertainty over suitability of their Mandava Stadium fortress in Zvishavane.

While all other key areas at Mandava Stadium are up to standard, there are still no floodlights, a huge dent on FC Platinum’s prayers to play at home because some matches are likely to be fixtured at night, especially in the group stages.

Pure Platinum Play have in the last two versions of the tournament been using Barbourfields Stadium for home games, but the Bulawayo venue also faces the same floodlights predicament after Caf inspectors condemned them after an inspection of the venue earlier this year.

Bulawayo City Council officials told members of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Sports during a tour of the stadium in July that the floodlights’ lighting intensity was at 850 LUX, but the required standard is 1 200 LUX .

The Parliamentarians were told that $73 million was needed to bring the intensity to the required standard.

“Our management is still deliberating on the venue matter and once that is done all our stakeholders will be informed accordingly,” FC Platinum media liaison officer Chido Chizondo said.

FC Platinum will get their campaign underway with a first-round first-leg preliminary encounter on the weekend of November 20-22 before wrapping up the first-round campaign five days later.

Only 12 countries will field two teams each in the next edition of the Champions League.

These include Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, DR Congo, Algeria, South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Guinea, Angola, Sudan and Libya.

This criteria is based on the Caf member association’s ranking, which itself is premised on the performance of the member association’s representatives in the Champions League over a five-year period.

Winners of the Champions League get six points, runners-up five points, semi-finalists (four points), quarter-finalists (three points), while teams finishing third and fourth in a group get two points and one point respectively.

Moroccan clubs have so far accumulated 180 points, the highest among the 12 top countries, while Libya anchor the list with 16,5 points.

Meanwhile no club will participate in this year’s Caf competitions without a club licensing certificate, Caf has announced.

“All engaged teams must respect the club licensing procedure and cooperate with their respective associations as non-licensed clubs will be refused participation,” said Caf in a statement.

Only FC Platinum and Highlanders made early significant strides towards attaining minimum club licensing requirements in the local Premier Soccer League.