Now, according to SowetanLIVE, Leopards have secured the Mbombela Stadium as the match venue for the encounter against Pirates because Leopards couldn’t find a suitable venue to host the Buccaneers, and their plans to take the game to Mozambique failed.
Orlando Pirates will NOT travel to Eswatini for their CAF Confederation Cup match against Royal Leopards this weeekend.
This is after CAF had found the Mavuso Sports Centre to lack basic requirements to host CAF inter-club competitions.
The publication reports that CAF deemed the venue’s changerooms to be too small in addition to a lack of proper benches and floodlights.
The Somhlolo Stadium is still not ready to host any sports events as it is being renovated – and that forced Leopards to take the match to Mbombela.
With the match set to be played in a territory familiar to Pirates, this could be seen as an advantage for the Pirates.
Coming from a 3-2 defeat away to Al-Ittihad Club of Libya, Pirates will treat this encounter as a home fixture rather than an away match.