Marumo Gallants are eyeing the largely unused Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg as their home-match venue for the remainder of the DStv Premiership campaign.

Gallants’ management notified players that the team is relocating to Centurion, Pretoria, as their training base, and viewing Royal Bafokeng as a potential new venue, instead of their current match base at Peter Mokaba Stadium.

The club’s move to the Platinum Province would come as a huge relief to the football-starved people of Rustenburg. The stadium has been mostly a white elephant since the demise of Platinum Stars, which became Cape Umoya in June 2018.

“Yes, Gallants have reached out to Royal Bafokeng Sports [RBS] to make use of the Sports Palace [Royal Bafokeng Stadium], but we are still negotiating and no final long-term agreement has been reached yet,” said Emile Smith, the sports and hospitality specialist for RBS.

Attempts to get comment from Gallants spokesperson Rufus Matsena were unsuccessful by the time of publishing.

Over the past few weeks, there has been strong speculation that Gallants might relocate to the Free State as part of a name-change deal with Bloemfontein Celtic, but it appears such a move has hit the skids.

Well-placed sources at the club, who did not want to be named, indicated to TimesLIVE the club has decided to relocate to Pretoria because they feel they are not getting sufficient financial support from the Polokwane municipality.

“The players have been told about the move, and the team will be training somewhere in Centurion,” a source said.

“The reason for this move is the club is feeling the pinch of the extra burden of travelling to Polokwane every time they arrive in Johannesburg [from playing in other cities around the country] and it takes its toll on the players.

“They have qualified for the group stages of the Caf Confederation Cup, which comes with travelling on the continent, and staying in Gauteng will significantly cut out the extra bit of travel.”

Mantlako Sebaka, the head of marketing, communications and stakeholder relations at the City of Polokwane, said the municipality would consider going to arbitration to resolve an end to the contract they have with Gallants. 

“In the contract, which still has about two years to run, there is provision for arbitration, and we would take that route,” Sebaka said.

“We will get an arbitrator and make a case for costs incurred because we went into this contract with our eyes wide open. Unfortunately there is no communication from their [Gallants’] side. I have to be accountable to the people of Polokwane and to my principals.”

The DStv Premiership season returns from the seven-week break for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar at the end of the month.

Gallants, in 11th place, play their first game against SuperSport United at Lucas Moripe Stadium in Atteridgeville on December 30.