Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has quashed claims Mamelodi Sundowns bankrolled all the renovations at Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) chief operations officer, Professor Ronnie Schloss made the claims during a radio interview this week.
MMC for Community and Social Development Services in Tshwane, Peggy de Bruin has, however, disputed Schloss’s version, saying the metro paid more than R800 000 in the 2021/22 financial year and R1.5 million in the last financial year to renovate the stadium.
Reacting to the interview she said: “On August 8, 2023, Prof Ronnie Schloss was interviewed by Mr Thabiso Mosia on his sport show on Radio 2000 regarding the state of stadiums in the country. He rightfully painted a worrying picture about the bad state of stadiums and indicated that this was because of lack of maintenance by municipalities. In the same interview, he referred to Lucas Moripe Stadium.”
She said she was disappointed by comments, “that the game between the Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs took place at the stadium only because of the renovations done by Mamelodi Sundowns, and that the club did all the renovations instead of the City of Tshwane”.
“I wish to categorically state that this is factually incorrect and indicate that the city, through the Community and Social Development Services Department, spent over R800 000 in the 2021/22 financial year and R1.5m in the last financial year (2022/23) to renovate the stadium after we received a letter from PSL informing us that the stadium was banned from hosting their games until those renovations were done,” she said.
She said Schloss, together with Sundowns and SuperSport United, were kept abreast of the renovation project, starting from when the contractor was appointed until the completion of the project.
“They were subsequently all invited to the final site inspection where Prof Schloss indicated he was happy with the work and gave the clubs the go ahead to list the stadium as their venue. However, he highlighted a few items that still needed to be fixed before he could issue the letter of compliance,” De Bruin said.
According to her, her department indicated the outstanding work pointed out by Schloss would be completed in the current financial year, 2023/24, which started in July.
“Given that government procurement processes take long, it was not going to be possible to complete this work before the game between the Mamelodi Sundowns and Kaizer Chiefs. Mamelodi Sundowns then offered to fix those items and in return, the Community and Social Development Services Department would pay for some of the costs of the joint operations committee services that are required when hosting games,” she said.
She reiterated it was not true Sundowns renovated all the stadium instead of the municipality.
“I would also like to thank the club for their proactiveness and indicate that our relationship, including those with other PSL clubs that are based in Tshwane, remains healthy and we value that.
“We have admitted before, that the state of our sports facilities is not good and that as much as the city is facing financial challenges, we remain committed to ensuring that we maintain them to be at the required standard, and we will continue with that work,” she said.
Pretoria News