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La Liga to appeal decision

Sport
Zifa Northern Region Division One football side La Liga have said they will appeal to Zifa concerning the disputed match against Black Rhinos awarded to the latter as a walkover after the former failed to turn up for the replay on Wednesday. The second-tier league executive last Friday ordered a replay of the abandoned match, […]

Zifa Northern Region Division One football side La Liga have said they will appeal to Zifa concerning the disputed match against Black Rhinos awarded to the latter as a walkover after the former failed to turn up for the replay on Wednesday.

The second-tier league executive last Friday ordered a replay of the abandoned match, supposed to resume on 77th minute with Rhinos leading 1-0.

However, the aggrieved party, La Liga, failed to turn up at the match venue forcing the executive to award the match to the army side on a 3-0 scoreline.

The chaos continued yesterday with La Liga saying they did not recognise the result. Among numerous reasons they gave for the non-appearence, they argued the executive which passed the initial judgment for a replay did not have the mandate to do so.

“There are a lot of issues not addressed properly when the ruling was made,” said La Liga coach Naison Muchekela yesterday.

“For example it is not clear whether the executive that passed the judgment constitutes a disciplinary committee, which we feel should have handled this matter.

We were not given a chance as the aggrieved party to be heard, neither have we been allowed to see the minutes to the meeting that passed the first judgment.

“We have requested to have a look at the referees’ and police reports, but up to now that has not happened.

We will sit as a board this evening (yesterday) to see which channels to follow. We are not being given a chance to be heard by our own executive. So the next move might be to take our case to Zifa, or go all the way to Caf,” added Muchekela.

Muchekela, however, ruled out any possibility of his team taking the matter to the courts.

“We would not want to bring the game of football into disrepute so we will not do that. That route is out. We just want the matter to be concluded as soon as possible so that it won’t disrupt the end of the season,” he said.

The dispute arose last week at One Commando Barracks when a La Liga player was allegedly hit by a Rhinos supporter as he was preparing to take a corner-kick, prompting teammates to storm off the pitch.

Rhinos were leading 1-0 at the time of the fracas with 13 minutes remaining on the clock.

Despite the three points that have been deducted from them, La Liga are still in second position with 45 points, the same number as log leaders Harare City with only two games left before the season ends.

The team ending the season on the top of the log gets automatic promotion into the top-flight league next season.