Ethekwini Municipality cleans up Albert Park for Nedbank Cup final
The park will host a live screening of the match between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday, 10 May 2025.
Community members also joined in to assist. Community members cleaning up Albert Park. Image: Nomndeni Ndlovu
The clean-up, led by Trump-Based management officials, occurred across several parks in Durban, including Umgeni Road, South Beach, Albert Park and other prominent parks.
Albert Park is notoriously known for its high crime rate and is deemed a 'no-go' area as it is known drug addicts who are known as 'Amaphara'.
Speaking to The South African, Nokulunga Buthelezi, a citizen, said that she is still scared to visit Albert Park, even after it was cleaned.
'I am still sceptical about setting foot at Albert Park. I mean, I can see how beautiful it is cleaned and painted.'
'But what if this is only temporary and the park is cleaned because of the Nedbank Cup screening that will happen here and after that, things will go back to how they were before?'
However, the councillor of ward 32 in Durban, Protas Mngonyama, assured that the park will continue being clean and is beefed up with security, even after the screening of the Nedbank Cup.
'The clean-up is not because of the Nedbank Cup screening. The municipality started a programme in November 2024, to clean up the park and remove gangsters who lived there.'
'We have put up tight security and a fence around the park to ensure the safety of the community,' Mngonyama said.
The Nedbank Cup final sales tickets were scheduled to be sold from 10:00 on Monday, 5 May 2025.
However, due to a high volume of fans buying tickets, the system crashed, leading to the sale of more tickets than the stadium's 41 000 capacity.
Noluthando Kunene, an Orlando Pirates fan, said that she ended up getting a refund after she was not issued a ticket.
'I don't want to lie, I am very sad that I could not go and watch the match, even though I did purchase a ticket.'
'I scratched out so many plans for this event only to be left disappointed like this while it's not even my fault, they knew many people would want to buy tickets, so they should have planned this well,' said Kunene.
Meanwhile, Acting CEO of PSL, Mato Madlala, confirmed that there had been a system glitch that resulted in more tickets being oversold.
'The server crashed, and we had challenges at that time because of the numbers, everyone trying to access the system at the same time,' said Madlala.
Fans without tickets were urged not to go to the stadium.
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