After Mamelodi Sundowns beat Al Ahly 1-0 in front of 2000 fans in their CAF Champions League game on Saturday, Manqoba Mngqithi says it is high time South Africa changes its policy and allows more supporters in.
Sundowns beat Ahly for the second time in a row in the Group Stages, winning 1-0 at the FNB Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
It gives the DStv Premiership champions a substantial six point lead in Group A, with two games to play for all the teams. Al Ahly, Al Merrikh and Al Hilal are all on four points.
Mngqithi says it is high time South Africa changes it policy, and leads the way in returning supporters to the stadiums.
“I think South Africa must really change and look at this very closely,” Mngqithi said after the game at the post match press conference.
“We had a Nations Cup in Cameroon, and if we really think as a country, we have rolled out a lot in terms of vaccination, and we have done (well), and we think we are a bigger country than most of these countries in terms of our level of development, then we should be a little bit more confident that we have more people vaccinated in our country.
“Then, because of that reason, we should show confidence even to the outside countries by also opening this thing up. If you’ve got these people sitting on this side of stand, what’s the difference if you had the same thing happening on the other side, and the other side, and on the other side, because if there’s still a risk, there was a risk today.”
Mngqithi says that in other countries there are already more supporters allowed, and he also feels it’s time for supporters to return for the DStv Premiership.
“But there is no risk, when we go to Al Ahly, they open for more than 5000 people? But we open for 2000?” he continued.
“No, the playing fields are not the same. And in the Champions League, we need that support, but I also believe even in the league, we need a little bit more in terms of allowing the spectators, because I don’t understand.
“If you go to Egypt, there are spectators, if you go to Afcon there are spectators, South Africa still does not have spectators?
“It is like maybe we are trying to make sure that people buy more subscriptions to watch their games at home, instead of making sure that the game is watched in the stadium.
“Look at how nice the atmosphere was today? And we would want to have this atmosphere in all our matches, and other teams also are suffering.
“Other teams, they don’t even have a sponsor. And they rely on gate takings. For how long must they continue without any money coming from the spectators?
“So I honestly think it’s something that the country must look at very closely because I think at this stage, we are cheating ourselves.”
