The South African Football Association has come singing the praises of the government for announcing that stadiums can now take half of their capacities with immediate effect for domestic football.
Local football has been played without fans for two years in an arrangement that has of late irked fans and club coaches amongst them Manqoba Mngqithi of Mamelodi Sundowns who felt that this was all a ploy to up the DStv subscriptions.
DStv sponsors the PSL.
AmaZulu’s Benni McCarthy also questioned why fans were not being allowed back when life is back to normalcy with people clubbing, partying, smoking, and having full-on sex.
While plenty of the rest of the world has long opened up doors for fans as proof of just how confident they are with the vaccination rollouts, the PSL has chosen not to have empty seats even when the government was allowing 2000 fans.
The PSL argued that it wasn’t financially feasible to allow a restriction of 2000 fans back in with only the MTN8 final played with those limited fans last year.
There have been limited fans allowed for CAF club competition games and Bafana Bafana matches.
“We are happy that the government has opened up the space for fans to go back to the stadiums and it is a position that we have always advocated for. We welcome that decision,” Danny Jordaan, the SAFA president is quoted as saying by the mother body.
“We have always said vendors have suffered enough due to Covid-19 pandemic and it is high time that they go back to their businesses and only source of income of selling wares at the stadiums.
“This is also welcome news to taxi drivers as they had been starved of this source of income of ferrying fans to and from the stadiums,” says the SAFA supremo.
State president Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday evening that vaccinated fans or those with negative PCR tests not older than 72 hours would be allowed into venues for both indoor and outdoor venues.
SAFA is planning to bid for various continental and global events.
The PSL has yet to state its position following the announcement.
Source: Kick-off
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