The North West province is forging ahead with its plans to turn Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace into the home for one of the Gauteng PSL clubs.

Since the demise of Platinum Stars, the world-class stadium has turned into a white elephant.

Bafana Bafana played a friendly game against Namibia last night at the 2010 World Cup venue. Bafana will wrap up their programme with another match against Zambia at the same venue on Sunday (3pm). But due to the Covid-19 regulations, fans were not allowed into the stadium.

The MEC for sport in North West, Virginia Tlhapi, said her office was working closely with private funders to try and lure a team from Gauteng to play some of their home matches at the stadium in the new DStv Premiership season starting on October 24.

Promoted Swallows could be one of the teams earmarked to play some of their games in Phokeng. But Tlhapi was tight-lipped about revealing the names that the provincial administration is still negotiating with.

“As a province, we want to host a PSL team here next season, and it is something that we are still engaged in. I don’t want to dwell too much on that one as we are still in discussions with the team and private business people to come and assist us financially. We are also planning on inviting Bafana to play here again next year,” she said.

She also hopes to use the stadium for festivals and other recreational purposes. The MEC said that her office is still planning to go ahead with the sports awards before the end of the year.  

She signed off on documents to facilitate the relief fund to pay athletes in the province starting from next week. “Yes, I signed off the papers for athletes and artists to be paid their money next week. We will also do our end-of-the- year awards ceremony online to save money,” she added.