Cape Town City suddenly have a choice of venue for Kaizer Chiefs showdown

Cape Town City suddenly have a choice of venue for their prestige fixture against Kaizer Chiefs next week and will decide in the next days whether it will be played at the Cape Town Stadium or Newlands.

One week ago it looked as if there would be a crisis about the venue for the game and that the club would be forced to take the match outside of the province‚ as they had to do last season when there was a crisis over venues in the Mother City.

The Cape Town Stadium is City’s preferred home venue but the field had to be relaid after the Monster Jam auto spectacle at the end of April.

Adverse weather conditions meant that germination of the new seeds was slow and the field still a mess by the time the new season started at the beginning of the month.

This sparked a furious outburst from City chairman John Comitis‚ who accused the stadium’s management of not serving football as they should.

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City moved their first home match of the season against Stellenbosch FC to Athlone Stadium but because of a clash with Ajax Cape Town this past Saturday had to scramble to find another venue for the MTN8 quarter-finals.

It was only at the start of the week that they managed to secure Newlands‚ a venue traditionally not too keen on football but suddenly tripping over themselves to help.

Newlands’ pitch was also in tip-top shape and the stadium’s management happy to host City‚ hoping that the game against Polokwane City was not a one-off and that the Chiefs game will also be taken there too.

The matter was further clouded by an incident on Friday when City officials accompanied Premier Soccer League’s ground expert Ronnie schloss to the Cape Town Stadium for an inspection but were refused entry.

City were told they “did not have an appointment”.

This sparked more fury from Comitis and some backpeddling from the stadium‚ who allowed City to inspect the field on Monday.

The turf is now under hot lamps to try and help the grass grow quicker in the hope it will be ready for the Chiefs’ game but City are waiting until midweek to make a final call.