Battle for bragging rights: Chiefs and Royal AM to fight it out for Macufe Cup

As the annual Mangaung African Cultural Festival (Macufe) event returns after a two-year hiatus due to the outbreak of the novel pandemic, Covid-19, football fans have another extravagant to experience as Premier Soccer League’s arch rivals, Kaizer Chiefs and Royal AM will battle-off in Macufe Cup, this afternoon at 3pm.

The bragging rights are up for grabs as the Soweto-based club and Shauwn ‘MamKhize’ Mkhize’s lads will face-off at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein.

This marks the very first Macufe Cup encounter without the now-defunct Bloemfontein Celtic, after it sold its club status to Royal AM last season (2020/21).

As Macufe incorporates of spontaneous events such as music concerts, comedy and other variety of entertainment festivals, football remains a prominent aspect of Macufe, where two teams battle off for a renowned Macufe Cup.

However, football fans – former Bloemfontein Celtic supporters have opted to snub the major tournament, as they are disgruntled following the sale of Siwelele.

Masele-sele fans have bashed off Celtic head boss Max Tshabalala for selling the people’s green and white outfits to the KwaZulu-Natal’s flamboyant businesswoman, MaMkhize.

Fans claimed that is an insult for Macufe Cup to be played with no any other Free State football club.

They also thrown shades at Macufe organisers, for stretching their hand to invite Chiefs and Royal, asserting that this match will not make a meaningful impact to the advancement of the Free State province.

Aggrieved supporters said they will mobilise Free Staters to boycott today’s encounter and rather organise a syncronised picnic at Masenkeng Stadium.

“We feel we’re being insulted by the organisers to invite Royal to come and play Macufe Cup. We don’t want to find ourselves near the stadium because we don’t want anything that would associate us with Royal after they took our team to KZN, Celtic’s national supporters chairperson Mabena Pule told SowetanLive.

Despite all efforts from football fans to obstruct Macufe Cup to get underway, Macufe’s chief organiser Ban Mosene has assured football fans that the tournament will continue and labelled aggrieved supporters as a “small group of disgruntled people”.