Royal Bafokeng Sports (RBS) are hoping that the Champions League match between Mamelodi Sundowns and Al-Hilal Omdurman at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium on Friday will serve as a reminder that the venue is open for business.

The Brazilians have moved their first match of the group stages against the Sudanese side to Rustenburg as the Loftus, Lucas Moripe and Tuks stadiums in Pretoria have been declared non-compliant by Caf.

Royal Bafokeng has been starved of regular football action since 2018 when Platinum Stars was sold and RBS says they are open for business and will be available to host the Nedbank Cup final.

“We are very excited to be hosting a match of this significance. It speaks volumes about the investment in maintenance by Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi to ensure that the facility complies with Caf regulations for hosting events,” said Emile Smith, who is the sports and hospitality specialist for Royal Bafokeng.

“Last year in November we hosted the Diski Challenge matches and we have had on and off football matches over the last while but we want to have more and more events.

“The stadium is not a white elephant, before Covid-19 we hosted events like music concerts, church functions and on and off soccer matches here at the venue.

“We have been sending out our fee lists to certain people. We have also spoken to the city to tell them that the venue is available and we want to have mutually beneficial terms with everybody.”

Smith said Sundowns chose their venue because they have a good relationship with the club who were recently in camp at the Royal Marang before the resumption of the season.

“We are lucky that we have a very good relationship with Sundowns. Over the last couple of years they have use our facilities at Royal Marang for their training camps.

“We are definitely open for business and hopefully we can commercialise our strategy even more once lockdown restrictions have been lifted and stadiums are granted permission to have more than 2,000 spectators.

“Obviously it is a competitive market out there and a lot of it is depended on other commercial ventures that come around it but we are aggressively letting know people know that our stadium is available.

“Obviously the terms must be beneficial for both parties but we are available to host the Nedbank Cup final. The costs of maintaining the stadium are absorbed by the Royal Bafokeng nation.

“You must remember that we have structured this venue as a corporate entity and the Royal Bafokeng administration has certain mandates for the community and infrastructure. We fund infrastructure maintenance directly through the nation’s entities, we have a diversified portfolio.”