Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) had given South Africa’s sugar-maker, Tongaat Hullet, until Wednesday this week to surrender the Hippo Valley Club to the community.

This comes after Tongaat Hulett, the owners of Hippo Valley and Triangle football clubs, said it will be unable to further financially back the Hippo Valley.

The firm said the reason for this move was that it had limited resources because it was already funding a premiership side Triangle United.

“Accordingly we deliberated with the Hippo Valley community leadership, which is proposing to take over the sponsorship of the club,” ZIFA Eastern Region chairman, Fungai Chihuri, told The Herald of Zimbabwe.

Representatives of the community had held talks with the executive of ZIFA about this matter, it has emerged.

“We are of the fact that the issue is still an Eastern Region matter hence these deliberations. One thing that I have noted is the commitment by the community representatives to take over sponsorship of the club. What we have done is that we have given the owners of the franchise Tongaat Hullet the prerogative to decide whether they are willing to give the community the onus to sponsor the club and that has to be done by Wednesday so that we can move forward. If the community is keen to take over the financial burden of the club I do not see why they could be denied the chance,” said Chihuri in an interview with The Herald.