Online Reporter
Tadious Manyepo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
THE bucket seats handicap that has been holding back progress in the construction and reno-vation of stadiums across the country is set to be a thing of the past following the importation of a customised moulder by a local firm, Okima Plastics.
All the country’s venues are currently banned from hosting international football matches as they fall short of the CAF expected standards, chief amongst them the lack of bucket seats thereof.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel after Okima Plastics yesterday delivered the first standard consignment of the seats which was unveiled at Rufaro Stadium to coincide with the second phase of that stadium’s redevelopment.
The 6 000 pieces are set to be installed in the entire Western grandstand including the VIP en-closure in the coming weeks.
The remaining 16 500 seats will be manufactured by the same company and installed at the facility before the commencement of the next season which is scheduled to start in March 2025.
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume said the installation will be completed by March and the stadium capacity will go down from about 25 000 to 22500.
“I stood here about a year ago and assured the public that Rufaro Stadium will be opened and it has since come to pass. “The first stage in our program was to make the stadium ready for Premier League matches and the Defence Forces Day was celebrated here,” said Mafume.
“We are working with Okima and we will work with many others in different fields to make sure the project’s renovation goes according to plan.
“We do hope by the time we complete the renovations, the stadium will be ready for both local and international football.”
Mafume said the electronic turnstiles will also be fitted at the stadium before March next year.
“All in all we have 32 electronic turnstiles. We have inserted 18 already and we will install the remainder at the start of the 2025 season.
“We are about to finish the balance we owe the contractor. We are very happy to be making progress like this,” he added.
Okima Plastics director Henrietta Rushwaya said her company decided to import the moulder to ease pressure on stadium constructors since all grounds now need bucket seats.
“As a plastic manufacturing company, we realised that there was a need in the football frater-nity to have bucket seats in various stadia across the country and we first had engagements with the City of Harare where we agreed to be part and parcel of the fixing of Rufaro Stadium,” said Rushwaya.
“We want to ensure that international matches can be played at Rufaro and other stadiums around the country. As Okima, we are already in the process of importing plastic bucket seat-manufacturing machines to mould bucket seats locally.
“We have seen bucket seats being imported from outside and we have come in to bridge that gap.”
To crown the unveiling of the bucket seats at Rufaro yesterday, newly-promoted side Scottland played a practice match against Herentals with the owners of both teams, Pedzai “Scott” Sa-kupwanya and Innocent Benza both in the field of play.
Scottland were using the match as part of their preparation for the upcoming Champion of Champions tournament featuring all four promoted teams from all the regions.
Scottland, promoted from the highly competitive Northern Region Soccer League, Kwekwe United (Central), ZPC Hwange (Southern), and Triangle (Eastern) will battle it out for suprema-cy at Bata Stadium in Gweru on Saturday and Sunday.
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