BNSC marketing and communications manager, Anderson Nlisana said since Zimbabwe does not have a CAF approved stadium, Dynamos has requested to utilise the National Stadium. "We have a request from Dynamos to use the National Stadium for their CAF game. You will remember that is one of the countries that has stadiums that are CAF compliant besides South Africa. A lot of countries around us have challenges of CAF compliant stadiums. Their teams have come to us to request to use the stadiums," Nlisana said. "We have acceded in terms of Dynamos, we have agreed to allow them use the stadium for their CAF game. We did that based on the availability of the field," he added. However, he was quick to point out that they will always give Botswana teams priorities. "We give priority to Botswana based teams.
If Galaxy was to play on the same date as Dynamos we would obviously not make Galaxy compete for the stadium," he said. Dynamos will pay a fee for the use of the venue, although figures were not revealed. "Of course there is a cost, however we have a standard fee that depends caliber of the game and also the period you would be using the stadium for, among other reasons. There is market rate that we use for both local and international requests but you will remember that for a long time we not charged local teams for usage of the stadiums, based on the fact that we are aware of the financial challenges they face as individual teams but obviously for those coming from outside we do not have that waive," he said. "It is not only Dynamos, we have a number of requests from the teams in the region, but like I said we will prioritise local teams first and also look at the fixtures to see if the dates do not clash with our local competitions before we can allow teams from outside to use our stadiums," Nlisana said.
He said some requests were turned down as their dates clashed with the local calender. "For some, we have found out that their dates clash with the BFA or BFL calendar so we could not give them the stadiums they have requested. So I can confidently say we have allowed Dynamos pending payment. The payment has deadline, you pay securing fee within seven days after requesting and it is 50% of the whole charge then you will pay the balance either before or just after the game." According to Zimbabwe's Herald newspaper, Dynamos initially wanted to take the match to South Africa but will now fly to Gaborone for the August 16 encounter. "We tried and failed to secure Orlando Pirates in South Africa because the upcoming new season fixtures in South Africa are yet to be finalised. So in terms of fixtures, there was no guarantee that the fixtures would not clash.
That's why we ended up running to secure a venue in Botswana," ZIFA CEO, Jonathan Mashingaidze told the paper. Dynamos are expected to enjoy good support in Gaborone given the number of Zimbabweans in Botswana. There are no strangers to the Botswana turf as they were in Gaborone in 2010 and 2013 to face Gaborone United (GU) and Mochudi Centre Chiefs respectively. The Zimbabwean side was in Gaborone in 2010 where they edged out GU 4-2 on aggregate in the Champions League. GU lost 4-1 away in Harare before going down 1-0 at home, as Dynamos enjoyed a lot of support in Gaborone. There is a likelyhood of Dynamos taking on Orapa United in the second round if both sides are triumphant in their first round assignments. Orapa have been drawn against Foresters from Seychelles and are tipped to advance to the next round. However, Dynamos might find it tough against the seasoned ZESCO. Second round winners go straight to the group stages.
