Pride at stake among soccer teams

Pride will be at stake when four top African soccer teams which command huge support for their achievements converge for the first leg of the Vodacom Challenge at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Phokeng, Rustenburg on Saturday.

Top guns Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs will host their Ghanaian counterparts Asante Kotoko and Hearts of Oak in the first leg of the two legged competition which will end in Durban on July 8.

Pirates have promised to reclaim the trophy they won in the inauguration tournament in 1999, while defending champions Chiefs have also indicated their intentions of retaining their trophy they won last year in Durban.

Oak, which has won a total of 14 championships in the past 14 years and the Ghana FA Cup 12 times winners, the same club that has achieved a double by winning the league and cup six times including last year's, promised to make the first appearance an unforgettable one.

Kotoko, six times winners of Ghana FA Cup, the African Super Cup titlists, holders of the Ghana First Division, and the Ghana FA Cup winners, chose to do the talking in the field of play.

The four giants will meet in an event dedicated to soccer fans who lost their lives in two tragedies at Ellis Park in a match between bitter rivals Chiefs and Pirates and another one involving the two Ghanaian clubs.

Fourty-three people died during the Pirates/Chiefs Premier Soccer League (PSL) in April, while four weeks later, at least 126 people died in a similar occurrence after Oak had beaten Kotoko in Accra. It is for that reason that Pirates boss Irvin Khoza, Chiefs managing director Kaizer Motaung and Andre Mthembu of Vodacom dedicated this year's soccer spectacular to safety and security.

The three men - who are the livewires behind this lucrative competition which carries R500,000 for the winners, R250,000 for the runners up with third and fourth places pocketing R100,000 each - have since dubbed it "Healing Process".

Pirates and Chiefs bosses Khoza and Motaung announced that their teams would travel to Ghana for a "Healing Process 2" in reciprocal matches. But the venue and date is still to be announced.

The two men said a sum of R10,000 would be donated to the victims’ fund.

Motaung said the tournament was in pursuit of the African Renaissance, while Khoza said the theme "Vodacom Challenge is appropriately stated as the healing process".

Chiefs and Oak, whose coach Cecil Jones Attaquayefio was recently named African Coach of The Year, will meet in the first match at 12.30pm.

PSL Champions Orlando Pirates and Kotoko will lock horns in the second match at 2.30pm.