Harare City acting town clerk Josephine Ncube has said the city council has started the process of modernizing Rufaro stadium giving it a face lift to match standards of modern stadia.  

Rufaro Stadium closed its gates at the end of the 2016 football season after the Harare City council availed approximately US$50 000 through the director of works to facilitate the planting of natural lawn grass at the 35 000 seater stadium after the removal of the artificial turf in time for the commencement of the 2017 football season. 

Speaking on the side lines of a tour of the pitch on Wednesday where work is being carried out on the pitch, Ncube assured the local football family that by the second week of April the stadium would be ready.

“We need to do quite a bit of work. There are things that we need to do to upgrade Rufaro to the state that it should be. Of course we can’t do everything at the same time but progressively we are going to put all that in place.

The city council is also expected to facilitate the erecting of bucket seats while WI-FI would also be available at the popular Mbare stadium this season. 

“In terms of Wi-Fi we have an arrangement with a local provider and you will see that Wi-Fi will be available at Rufaro during this season.

“In terms of the bucket seats, they are already on our budget for council and we will start putting in buckets seats this year and we are also going to put up an electronic scoreboard at Rufaro,” said Ncube.

The Harare City boss said they are also looking at having some renovations at Gwanzura in Highfield so that it can host some top-flight matches this season.

The Highfield facility was last season condemned to host Premiership league matches by the ZIFA Grounds Committee.

The Premier League had already raised concerns that there might be stadia challenges this season in Harare where five teams are based with only the National Sports Stadium available for use at the moment.