‘Naked Racism’ Threatens Soccer Club : South Africa: Team may be sold or disbanded. It has been banned from home stadium because Pretoria officials do not want crowd of black fans.

A leading professional soccer club is for sale and may disband because it is barred from the main stadium in its home of Pretoria. Team officials say the all-white City Council does not want big crowds of black fans.

The owners of Arcadia are white, as are most of its players, but it has competed successfully since 1976 in the National Soccer League. An overwhelming majority of the league’s players and fans are black.

Arcadia has been barred from Caledonian Stadium in central Pretoria since 1981 when the City Council said there was too much unruliness among fans at multiracial pro games.

The club’s lease on a smaller stadium expired when the 1989 season ended last month, and it appealed to the City Council to lift the ban for next season. The answer was “no,” and Arcadia chairman Saul Sacks this week announced that the team was for sale.

Local soccer writers have speculated that the sale may never materialize, and that Arcadia’s top three or four players will be sold for high transfer fees while the rest of the team disbands.

“It’s a disgrace that a club should be sold because it cannot use its home ground,” said Arcadia Coach Dave Barber. “The government is busy telling the world how it’s changing, but this naked racism remains, right in its capital city.”

Abdul Bhamjee, chief spokesman for the National Soccer League, urged Arcadia to remain intact and said the league would schedule games at Caledonian next season as an act of defiance against the City Council.

“We would openly dare the City Council to throw us out, with the whole world watching,” Bhamjee said.

Cor Uys, a leading council member, today denounced newspapers that reported Bhamjee’s “subversive call on Arcadia to defy the City Council.”

“Anarchy cannot and will not be tolerated,” Uys said.