The Sunday News
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Premier Soccer League and the Zimbabwe Football Association regions are in agreement on demoting two teams from the PSL but are not concurring on how many to promote.
A meeting took place between the PSL and Zifa to try to come up with a concrete proposal to be considered by the football mother body’s congress. Piraishe Mabhena the Zifa board member in charge of competitions who chaired yesterday’s meeting said all members of the committee were in attendance, these being the four regional chairpersons, the PSL emergency committee members, Kenny Mubaiwa, Lewis Uriri, Lovemore Matikinyidze and Lifa Ncube. The lengthy gathering took place at the current Zifa offices, 160 Enterprise Road in Harare.
Mabhena pointed out that three scenarios were presented with the advantages and disadvantage of each proposal being looked at.
“We tabled three scenarios, looked at merits and demerits, demoting two and promoting two, then another scenario of demoting two and promoting four. What we agreed on is that with regards demotion we feel that two teams be demoted from the PSL. We still feel we need to propose so teams don’t feel hard done and losing sponsorship.
“Zifa council made a resolution on 29 October to promote four and demote four. As a committee appointed we have no powers to reverse congress decisions. The aim of our committee is to actually propose a position to congress so we can come up with a counter proposal. Congress can consider not to even listen, 32 out of the 58 members from the regions and PSL …..
The strength in the set up that we had gone for, it’s almost a given that congress will agree to this,’’ said Mabhena.
He feels that they had a fruitful discussion and were keen to increase interactions between regions as well as PSL to avoid miscommunication in future.
According to Mabhena, the contentious issue is that of promotion where it is felt that if two are to be promoted it means that play-offs have to be staged with time a main worry since most Division One teams have contracts of their players expiring at the end of this month. If four teams are to be promoted with two being dropped, it creates a constitutional challenge since only 16 PSL teams are recognised. The cost of an 18-team league to the PSL sponsors and clubs is also being considered.
“We have requested submissions from PSL and the regions, these parties need to consult, if we promote four teams will we have the support of Delta. If we acknowledge that there will be a problem with sponsorship, we have to come up with a position. By Monday we should be able to tell when we are meeting to resolve the issue,’’ said Mabhena.
The Zifa board member made it clear that his committee is only there to table proposals made until congress has adopted them. The committee has no binding mandate, its task is to come up with proposals on best way forward. Mabhena declared that they have gained a lot of ground and in whatever they are doing, they are mindful of the fact that time is of valuable essence.
On 29 October, the Zifa congress decided to rescind a decision made by the similar structure in 2015 to promote two teams from the four regional leagues while relegating the same number of sides from the PSL.
At that meeting in October, it was agreed that the four Zifa regional champions be elevated while the same number of sides be demoted from the PSL. After that meeting, the PSL members met where they resolved not to accept that resolution and have taken the issue to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
As the impasse continues, the regional champions as well as the bottom four teams in the PSL are still in limbo as they do not know who would be playing in which league next season.
@Mdawini_29
