It is sad to see our beloved Alexandra continue to play second fiddle to a number of other townships, some of which are still in their infancy.
Alexandra has just lost out on a grand opportunity to play host to some exciting premiership matches in the form of the MultiChoice Diski Challenge, which is the reserve league of the Absa Premiership.
The Diski challenge brings together fringe players from the 16 Absa Premiership teams and enables them to continue to hone their football skills and development, and also to polish their form in the hope of one day breaking into the main team.
The MDC, as it is better known, offers career opportunities outside football to those fringe players by opening the world of SuperSport activities and the broadcasting industry in general to them.
Mpumalanga Black Aces Football Club, which has Linksfield as its main head office, had wanted to stage its Diski challenge matches in Alexandra but the grand idea was scuppered by the poor state of the Alexandra Stadium.
But the Premier Soccer League, which is the custodian of the MultiChoice Diski Challenge, would not want any of its matches played at this stadium which, to put it mildly, is simply not up to scratch to host games of the magnitude of the premier league.
But what is annoying is that in 2013, the City of Johannesburg duped the soccer loving community of Alexandra, and the football fraternity as a whole, by closing the stadium for an entire year, claiming they were undertaking renovations to modernise it.
It turned out that this modernisation was nothing other than simply splashing some paint on dilapidated players’ dressing rooms, ablution facilities and office blocks for the local football association.
What further irritates is that a whopping R4,5 million was spent to simply run a brush of paint on rotting structures instead of taking them down and building them anew, as promised.
The people of Alexandra would like to know what happened to the R4,5 million that was ear-marked for the re-leveling of the ground, re-grassing the pitch, erecting a higher fence to contain balls, the building of a new grandstand, and the demolition of an adjacent church property to make way for new office blocks for the local football association.
Mr Mayor, Sir, as the political accounting officer of the city, the people of Alexandra want to know what happened to the money, not simply any money but a whopping R4,5 million.
