Maritzburg United cry foul over 'bullying tactics' by Royal AM

Maritzburg United have been forced to move their first Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) game of the season against Milford FC to Durban’s King Zwelithini Stadium at the 11th hour.  

This after Royal AM, owned by Durban businesswoman and socialite Shauwn “MaMkhize” Mkhize, allegedly told the Msunduzi municipality Maritzburg is to be barred from using Harry Gwala Stadium.

Maritzburg used Harry Gwala, attracting good crowds, for their 17 seasons in the DStv Premiership until their relegation last campaign.

In dropping to the MFC, United ceded their sponsorship deal from the Msunduzi municipality, worth R9m a year. The municipality opted to offer the same deal to Royal, who moved their games from Durban, where they mostly used Chatsworth Stadium, to Harry Gwala.

Royal’s training facility, the glitzy Royal Ranch, is in Pietermaritzburg. 

While this left United’s future as a tenant at Harry Gwala in doubt, publicly the two teams have said they would share the stadium as a match venue.

Friday’s match against Milford see the Team of Choice begin life in the second tier. It was initially scheduled for Friday at Harry Gwala Stadium (7.30pm) and will now take place at Durban’s King Zwelithini Stadium.

TimesLIVE is in possession of a copy of a letter by Royal’s GM Richard Makhoba instructing Msunduzi municipality to block Maritzburg from using Harry Gwala Stadium.

“I hereby will like to clarify the confusion regarding the use of the above-mentioned stadium both [for] practise and [the] main field for hosting the official matches,” reads the letter.

“As the general manager of Royal AM FC, I have no powers to give permission to Maritzburg United or any other club to jointly share the Harry Gwala facilities. The council decision to offer Royal AM [a] football the stadium needs to be respected and the process to access the facility does not depend on Royal AM but the municipality.

“The use of the Harry Gwala facilities is solely for Royal AM FC and we did not receive monies from Maritzburg United FC to lease the training field to them on a temporary basis. 

“We request your office to please remove Maritzburg United with immediate effect from the training field as our MDC [reserve] and ladies’ teams will soon need a place to train. As for the main stadium, we request Maritzburg United to look for [another] stadium where they are going to play their fixtures. 

“We can’t share the stadium as the maintenance was not done and this will compromise the quality of our field. We request reinforcement of stadium security as the deployment is not enough to safely guard the facilities.”

While United were previously the sole top flight tenants at Harry Gwala, there was a time when they shared the venue with second-tier Royal Eagles, the predecessor to Royal AM, which was owned by Mkhize and her ex-husband Sbu Mpisane.

United chair Farook Kadodia said they were told they could not use the venue on Friday night because Royal wanted to use it for training ahead of their game against TS Galaxy on Sunday (3pm).  

Usually teams only train at the match-day venue the day before a game.

“The problem here is Royal AM are calling the shots,” Kadodia said.

“Now the municipality is reluctant about letting us use the stadium and at the 11th hour we were told Royal AM are training on Friday evening, though they are only playing on Sunday afternoon.

“Normally the captain’s run is only a day before, about the same time you will play the match, but I believe they booked the stadium yesterday [Wednesday] to train on Friday just to block us from playing there.”

Kadodia said he was disappointed at what seems to be bullying tactics by Royal, given they have publicly made it clear they would agree to share Harry Gwala as a match venue.

“Definitely, it was just talk [from them],” he said.  

“Until the first game, they were talking very well that we will share the ground, and after the first game, I don’t know what transpired between Royal AM and the municipality, but on the Monday morning everything started to change when they sent a letter to the municipality to say, ‘We don’t want Maritzburg United to play their home games at Harry Gwala'.”

Attempts to reach Makhoba for comment have been unsuccessful.