SA v Egypt - Qualifier

N

nivek

Honorary Master
Joined
Mar 25, 2005
Messages
10,616
Reaction score
2,829
Not a great game but - why are they playing at Ellis Park?

Is Soccer city just for concerts now? :D
 
http://af.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idAFJOE7280DV20110309

By Mark Gleeson

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The pitch at the stadium that hosted last year's World Cup final has been declared unfit for South Africa's Nations Cup qualifier against holders Egypt later this month, the country's FA (SAFA) said on Wednesday.

The match has been moved from Soccer City to nearby Ellis Park with SAFA officials unhappy about the standard of a new 1.5 million rand pitch laid after a recent concert by the Irish rock band U2 had rendered the previous one unplayable.

The new pitch was used for a top-of-the-table domestic league match between rivals Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates last month just seven days after being laid with huge divots being dug up by tackles and players running a risk of injury.
Click to expand...
 
Great win for Bafana! Does not matter how, it matters that we are top of our pool! Whoop! :D
 
lilggg said:
Seems the game on sunday probably wont get broadcast again :(

http://www.kickoff.com/news/22147/egypt-vs-south-africa-may-not-be-on-television.php
Click to expand...

Hopefully this situation has been fixed:

Safa president Kirsten Nematandani has this evening confirmed that the match between South Africa and Egypt will be live on SABC.

It was touch and go as the public broadcaster had been failing to reach common ground with French sports agency, Sport Five, who holds the broadcast rights for the match. Sport Five demanded over R5 million from the SABC, but the latter wouldn’t budge telling KickOff.com it was a “ridiculous” amount to pay.

However, Safa were having none of it the rest of today with vice-president Mandla Mazibuko insisting to South Africa’s travelling media that the match will definitely be live and as we returned from Bafana’s training session this evening, Nematandani sat down the media and broke the news.

“We are happy to report now that everything is under control,” said Nematandani, who apparently asked South Africa’s sports minister Fikile Mbalula to intervene in ensuring there is no television blackout for South Africans.

Accompanying Nematandani was his deputy, Mazibuko, who was hopping mad during the day saying boardroom matters shouldn’t be depriving South Africans of watching such a big game.

The matter is now water under the bridge though, with confirmation that the match will definitely be live.

Kick-off for the encounter is 20h30, same time as in South Africa because there is no time difference between the two countries.
Click to expand...

Kickoff

I hope that the broadcast rights have been bought, and that we'll get to see the match on SABC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X