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THE Harare City Council this week announced they were taking some important steps towards the renovation of Rufaro Stadium. 

The refurbishment of this ground, which occupies an iconic status in the history of the nation, has been long overdue.

Rufaro was last used for Premiership football four years ago. It is currently in a bad state and has repeatedly been condemned by the ZIFA and PSL stadium inspectors.

The announcement by the Harare City Council that they have partnered City Parking, a private company under their purview, has been greeted with both excitement and skepticism across the board.

The football clubs and spectators alike are waiting with bated breath. But the claim by the Council that they will finish all the required works by Mid-March is a bit too ambitious, unless this is just a quick fix to host local football games only.

For Rufaro to meet the international standards that we all want, it needs more time, not just the four weeks they are talking about.

There is a lot of work that is needed to be done in order for the ground to meet the CAF and FIFA approved standards. The body of local stadium inspectors, which comprises of members from PSL and ZIFA, has made extensive recommendations for it to be approved, so has CAF and FIFA.

When the stadium was closed in 2019, the stadium inspectors highlighted nine areas which required attention before Rufaro could be allowed to host league matches.

They wanted the playing surface to be levelled, new pitch perimeter support structures and a new razor wire around the perimeter wall to be installed.

They also expressed disgruntlement over the drainage system and the ablution facilities which they wanted overhauled, as well as the expansion and upgrading of dressing rooms for teams and match officials.

The inspectors wanted the Council to provide facilities for the physically challenged and to improve the general cleaning of the stadium and its surroundings.

Other areas of concern included the lack of direction signs to the stadium as well as to attend to spectators’ seating areas and installing bucket seats around the stadium.

The concerns raised by the CAF inspection committee the last time they came to Zimbabwe and inspected the stadiums should also be taken into consideration.

These included the construction of such facilities as standard doping rooms, a medical facility, press rooms, television camera points and installation of modern electronic turnstiles.

But then, what is the deal with City Parking offering? A statement released by the Harare City Council recently said, as part of the project, City Parking, a major source of revenue for the council, will carry out works outside the main stadium.

Part of the statement read: “As part of the project partners, City Parking will carry out work outside the main stadium which includes another arena towards the city end, a shopping complex, additional outside toilets, a statue of one of the country’s finest football legends, the late George “Mastermind’’ Shaya, a car park, food court and boundary wall, among others.

“The B Arena will mostly be used as a training ground and will have its own boundary wall, a supermarket, some small shops and the works include having its own in-and-out access. The shopping complex, which is where the George Shaya statue will be erected, will include sports attire shops, betting shops, car washing facilities and a bar.

“The car park is expected to accommodate 500 cars and will include a parking bay which accommodates 10 buses and a VIP parking lot, all secured by automated boom gates. The VIP parking lot will accommodate trucks at the extreme end.

“The perimeter walls of the revamped Rufaro Stadium will include a mixture of brick wall and palisade fencing.”

This is what the Council is hoping to have fixed in the next four weeks. Hopefully they have not forgotten to factor in the recommendations by the local and international stadium inspectors.

Hopefully, the idea is not just to spruce up the stadium to impress the local inspectors; and not all about expanding City Parking’s revenue touch points.

The Council should be reminded that in everything that they are planning to do with Rufaro, football must be the winner.

From what we gleaned in the statement from City Parking, it does not at all promise to attend to all the problem areas that were pointed out by the stadium inspectors when they condemned the ground in 2019.

The inspectors even mentioned that the infrastructure at Rufaro was a disaster in the waiting since some of the steel structures have been destroyed by corrosion and need replacement.

The Council has never demonstrated seriousness in their past endeavours to renovate the facility. In fact, there have been promises upon promises with no corresponding action. Sometimes the Council gave false information to the stakeholders but their lies still came back to bite them.

Rufaro was closed in 2017 for supposed renovations but the major thing the Council did was only to remove a synthetic turf, which they replaced with natural grass, after complaints from clubs that the artificial turf that was donated by FIFA had become unplayable and contributing to injuries due to lack of maintenance.

At the time of reopening, there were still concerns by teams over the drainage system and dressing rooms, which had remained in a dilapidating state.

Council also applied paint to some of the surfaces inside the stadia and promised to install bucket seats but up to now they have no clue when the bucket seats will be installed.

Interestingly, at the same time that the council had been struggling to service the available facilities in 2019, with Gwanzura lying idle for years now, the city fathers had the temerity to reveal ambitious plans to construct a new multi-million dollar state-of-the-start stadium at Highglen Shopping Centre.

They even claimed they had put aside $1,4 million for the initial phase of the project, but four years down the line, only God knows what happened to that venture.

The opposition-led City Council have been like that for many years now and they have been short-changing the sports-loving citizens without shame.

Recently, the Council came under pressure from citizens following the collapse of their proposed lease agreement with Sakunda Holdings.

The company, which sponsors Dynamos and Highlanders, wanted to transform Rufaro and its environs into a world class facility, complete with shopping malls and restaurants and had set aside US$5 million for that purpose.

Hopefully, the Council also have worked on their budget and will go one step better and beat what he had been proposed by Sakunda Holdings for the stadium.

Rufaro means a lot to many Zimbabweans because of its historic significance. The Harare City Council should stop playing politics with the ground and be serious with the renovations this time around.

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt that by mid-next month the ground should be ready for CAF certification, as they are claiming.

The whole nation is watching.