Stadium water outage leaves Chiefs, Polokwane unable to shower - TimesLIVE

Challenges regarding match venues this PSL season reached a crescendo at the weekend when the Polokwane City vs Kaizer Chiefs fixture was hit by a water outage at the old Peter Mokaba Stadium.

The unprecedented outage, which lasted for the duration of the 1-1 draw in the Betway Premiership match, was described by one insider as a potential humanitarian crisis given that temperatures soared to nearly 30 degrees Celsius in the Limpopo capital at the weekend.

The latest episode brought to the fore the issue of poor maintenance of local stadiums 16 years after hosting the Fifa World Cup, with some teams having their matches shifted to other venues at the last minute.

Sowetan gathered that both teams and match officials departed the Old Peter Mokaba Stadium without showering, while some fans directly requested on-field club officials for assistance.

Chiefs communications manager Vina Maphosa didn’t hide the fact that the water outage inconvenienced the team, saying their fans were also left feeling hard done by the team.

“Before the game, we realised that there was no running water at the stadium, so we did try to find out [why there was no water], and we were told that there was an interruption, but water would be restored in no time,” Maphosa told Sowetan on Monday.

During the period of pre-match we got inconvenienced because there was discomfort in the dressing room since there was no running water, which is obviously a basic necessity in the dressing room.

“During the period of pre-match we got inconvenienced because there was discomfort in the dressing room since there was no running water, which is obviously a basic necessity in the dressing room. So our preparations before the game weren’t 100% because of the water outage.”

Maphosa also disclosed that water tankers were delivered during halftime, highlighting that the club was concerned about hygiene as the supporters were calling for them to intervene.

“Water drums were eventually delivered in the dressing room at halftime. Most of the supporters were calling us to respond to the challenge, and we started to get worried about the aspect of hygiene around the stadium. The team had to leave without bathing properly”

PSL COO Ronnie Schloss insisted the league wasn’t aware of this issue, promising to investigate.

“It’s the first time I hear that there was no water at the Old Peter Mokaba on Saturday,” he said.“We will investigate because when we deemed the stadium fit to host games, everything was good there.”

Mantlako Sebaka, sports manager at Polokwane municipality, which manages the stadium, referred queries about the water outage to the municipality’s communications manager, Thipa Selala, saying: “It was the supply lines from the municipality, not the stadium, unable to provide required services.”

Selala couldn’t be reached for comment.