Swallows FC are officially seeking for sites outside of Gauteng region to bring in money for the club, with North West and Mangaung as options for the Soweto team.
The Dube Birds have previously played their home matches at Dobsonville Stadium, but they now appear to be following in the footsteps of some PSL clubs who have used facilities outside of their provinces as alternative home grounds. During the previous season, Kaizer Chiefs struck an arrangement with the Polokwane Municipality to use Peter Mokaba Stadium as an alternate home stadium. The municipality agrees to pay Chiefs.
Swallows chairman David Mogashoa stated to the Siya team that they are seeking for venues where they can collaborate with a municipality in North West or Mangaung.
“Look, we’re looking for sponsors, but these sponsors aren’t always easy to come by.” We just have to keep looking, and while we keep looking, you have to make sure you tweak your model, which is what we did this past season, and thus we finished the season with few problems. Even if there were minor issues, we finished the season without incident,” Mogashoa told the Siya crew.
“Another thing people will notice is that we will need to find another venue.” We will go if we can find a venue where we can be supported by the venue. We are now paying for everything. We will be able to bring the games to that area if we can find some type of financial relief. We’ll be able to go wherever, whether it’s Mangaung or North West. We’re starting to talk to people now. We’ll also check with Mangaung and North West to see if anything is accessible. We’re not saying all of them, but some.”
Mogashoa described how difficult it has been to manage the club financially since the PSL rejected their agreement with Telkom three seasons ago because of a conflict of interest with the league’s sponsors.
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“People undervalue the Telkom thing. We had to run the club with an R50 million deficiency due to the sponsorship’s worth. On the basis of the sponsorship, we signed contracts. That’s why we had financial problems, but that’s all behind us now because the arrangement was (was supposed to be) for three seasons. The third season is now over, and we’re starting over next season.”
“This season, all we wanted to do was survive, and guess what? We finished in the top eight. We can actually declare we are in the top six since we have the same number of points as Sekhukhune and Stellenbosch. When you look at Swallows’ problems, you’ll marvel how we accomplished it. When it comes to the best clubs, there are clubs that are well-resourced in terms of facilities and finances, as well as those that are well-sponsored. We’re competing against them with nothing, and finishing in the top eight with no sponsor and hiccups here and there is impressive.”