Cape Town — Cape Town City arrived at the FNB Stadium on Saturday evening where they were met with locked gates.
City were meant to meet Kaizer Chiefs in a Dstv Premiership clash, but Chiefs were unable to field a team after reporting 31 positive Covid-19 tests at the club. Chiefs only had nine fit players including three goalkeepers.
City followed all the usual pre-match steps though, even posting pictures of their team cards being checked on the bus, which caused quite a stir on social media.
ALSO READ: Cape Town City FC will be at FNB Stadium ... with or without Kaizer Chiefs
Having followed all matchday procedures, Cape Town City FC was present at FNB Stadium for the start of the match at 18:00.
— Cape Town City FC (@CapeTownCityFC) December 4, 2021
Regrettably Chiefs did not arrive and the match officials called the game off at 18:15 in accordance with the rules of the game. A sad day for football. pic.twitter.com/vG8Ynxu4p9
The visitors have now left the stadium after being forced to wait outside along with the match commissioner.
"The process was that we had to honour the fixture,” said City's media liaison officer Julian Bailey
“The rules of the league state that only the PSL can postpone a fixture. Kaizer Chiefs cannot announce that a fixture has been postponed. So for us, we had to follow procedure, that’s why we travelled to Johannesburg yesterday.
“That’s why we wer at the stadium on time, 90 minutes before, as we were supposed to be.
“We met with the match commissioner and he explained the process to us, for us it’s all about following the processes
“What we explained by the match commissioner is that we had to remain there until at least 15 minutes after the scheduled kick off. We brought the whole team.
“We’ve handed in all the necessary documentation that goes to match commissioners and to the league before any match. We have not skipped any steps.
“The rest is up to the match commissioner and the match officials, they will submit all documentation, saying they have been here and we’ve been here, but the gates have been locked. The rest is really up to the officials.”
City even announced their lineup for the match that did not take place.
IOL Sport