Story by Gay Matambo
ZIMBABWE Football Association (ZIFA) president, Nqobile Magwizi has commended the corporate sector for partnering communities in sports infrastructure development following the conclusion in refurbishment works at Gibbo stadium in Chiredzi.
Following the completion of renovation works at Gibbo stadium by Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe, ZIFA President, Nqobile Magwizi, noted the importance of football infrastructure development initiatives in growing the country’s sports industry.
“Very impressive work done by Triangle. This is what we speak to when we looking at building strong partnerships with the corporate sector where they come in and commit resources to building infrastructure that helps the community. We can already see that this whole community in Triangle as well as in Chiredzi is vibrant due to the work they are doing. We have five pillars that we are advancing as an executive committee of ZIFA and one is building strong partnerships and the other one is on infrastructure and technology any they have already two of them. We have a strong partnership with them as well as they have put in resources into the refurbishments of the stadium as we had recommended to meet the standards as required by CAF and FIFA. Within two months they have already built new changing rooms, new tunnel, ablution facilities and it’s impressive,” Magwizi said.
Triangle United Football Club Chairperson, Weston Jemwa gave an update on the renovation works done at Gibbo stadium.
“The renovation works involved constructing dressing rooms, ablution facilities and important markings on the stadium. This was not an easy project. The important thing is that we are able to meet the required standards to host PSL Football. We had dressing rooms before but they did not meet the required standards for us to host PSL. In particular, there were no female dressing rooms for the referees, it was only for males so in this particular project we had to include dressing rooms for the females. There was no media room, no doping room, no medical room and our dressing rooms were too small so we had to upgrade them,” Jemwa said.
The completion of the renovation works at Gibbo stadium will now see Triangle United Football Club being able to resume hosting PSL matches at their own backyard, with their first match this Sunday against Highlanders.
