Posted in News on Nov 27, 2001.
At a meeting held at the Ellis Park stadium on Tuesday, 27th November 2001, the three parties agreed that in the interest of the pending commission submissions it would be proper to wait for the final report from Judge Ngoepe before staging the big clash at the Ellis Park Stadium again.
"Although we are already on track with new systems in place for the derby to go back to Ellis Park stadium, we thought, it would make sense with the commission to delay the return to Ellis Park until the final report is out.
"It ’s got nothing to do with Ellis Park as a venue, but more to do with what we are planning to do to circumvent any tragedy of this nature again. In fact, even with the game played at the FNB we will be forced to limit the seating, if Chiefs alone can fill the stadium with close to 60 000 spectators," said the Kaizer Chiefs-MD, Kaizer Motaung.
Plans were already underway to limit the seating at the Ellis park stadium following the Chiefs-Pirates derby, which claimed 43 lives on April 11 this year.
Some of the elements of caution include:
"The PSL is quite happy to recommend that Ellis Park stadium is one of the best stadiums in the country and is capable of hosting the Chiefs – Pirates derby again, but however we would love to respect the work of the commission.
"We will be leaving nothing to chance regardless of where we stage it, because there is a possibility of the demand and interest doubling up for this derby and that is why we urge all football lovers to co-operate with us on the pre-sale of tickets so that anyone who could not buy one of the 65 000 tickets should not bother coming close to the stadium.
"It will be an all ticket affair, and these tickets are going to be selling like hot cakes," said the Chief Executive Officer of the PSL, Dr Robin Peterson.
General Manager of the Ellis Park stadium, George Stainton added, “We are happy with this arrangement as we are still committed to hosting the Chiefs-Pirates derbies in the future once the commission’s work is complete”.
Tickets for the derby will sell for the normal R15 price for adults and R5 juveniles. Ticketweb will open their outlets on Monday following the Mandela Cup to sell tickets for the derby.
