PSL catches strays from Sead Ramovic over the poor state of Danie Craven Stadium pitch

Despite the PSL not being in control of the state and maintenance of the pitch, those duties falling under the local municipality and the host team, the outspoken continued to blame the league. The pitch was in good condition in other areas, but the center part and next to the benches was muddy. Ramovic says even cows could break their legs on that pitch.

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''When you try to fight the entire season to get into the MTN8 Cup, and you get to a game where probably a cow can break their legs on it. And you allow two teams to play on a horrible pitch like this, where are the leaders from the PSL, how can they allow us to play on a pitch like this. Professionally, it is embarrassing,'' said Ramovic. 

Earlier last week, the PSL and the sponsors announced that the prize money for this tournament had been increased from R8 million to R10 million and also increased the appearance fees from R800 000 to R1 million. Ramovic appeared to say they should’ve rather concentrated on improving the pitches.

''What is the point of increasing everything else and forgetting the main thing? It is not only for us but for Stellenbosch as well, it would have been a good game, considering how the two teams play. And then we ask ourselves why the supporters don't come to watch games, when the pitch is not on standard,'' added Ramovic.

With Galaxy still not cleared by FIFA after a transfer ban for the next three windows was imposed on them for owed salaries (R1.8 million) to Ivorian player Bernard Yao Kouassi, they came to this game without their players as they are not allowed to register them yet. The visitors only had five players on the bench compared to Stellies’ nine, but Ramovic was still not ready to address that and instead focused on the pitch issue.

''Do you think it is great to play on a field like this? When we can go from one point to another point, let's fix the field and talk about it. When the fields are fixed then we can move onto point two,'' he concluded.

Meanwhile, Stellies head coach Steve Barker also revealed that the pitch didn’t allow them to play their normal game and confirmed that maybe it has not recovered from hosting the Rugby U20 World Cup, which was played between the 29 June and 19 July. A total of nine rugby matches were played on that pitch, but Barker is hoping that it will improve as time goes on.

Stellies showed their character in this game, recovering from a goal down after Kamogelo Sebelebele had taken the lead, and went to halftime leading 2-1, thanks to goals from Jayden Adams and Andre de Jong, before Fawaaz Basadien added the third goal in the second half. But with the transfer speculation involving captain and star right-back Deano Van Rooyen and a potential move to Orlando Pirates, Barker denied that he was not fielded in this game because of that.