The South African Football Association Cape Town president Bennett Bailey has insisted that the association will not move out of Athlone Stadium, despite the City of Cape Town’s request.

According to a report by EWN, the City has instructed Safa CT to vacate the premises due to zoning issues, as well as health and safety issues.

The 34 000-seater stadium is the ‘home’ of Safa CT, and regularly hosts football matches from the top flight to lower divisions.

Bailey, however, insisted that they will not be going anywhere and will continue to use the stadium.

‘We are going nowhere, that is the home of football and that is where we will launch all of our activities from,’ said Bailey.

‘It’s, number one, that it (Athlone Stadium) is not zoned for a business. And then secondly, it’s for safety and health reasons, so those were the main reasons they advanced to us as to why we should vacate the office,’ Bailey added on the reasons behind they were told to vacate the stadium.

‘We advanced to them (CoCT) that we are not a business, we are a public benefit organisation and registered as such. We are a community-based organisation, so we do not qualify under the first one (business zoning).

‘The health and safety reasons, we are of the opinion that they could highlight that (specific issues) and we all become the wiser on how and how best to deal with this matter.’

The association then held a press conference on Thursday where Western Province Rugby, Western Province Cricket, Boxing as well as netball all came to show their support against the backdrop of the breakdown in the relationship between the City and the football community of Cape Town.

The press conference was held in an attempt to gain support from the community in Cape Town to try and stop the eviction from taking place.