Castle Lager Premier Soccer League (PSL) clubs, likely to be affected if a proposal to relegate four teams at the end of the 2016 campaign is adopted, remain hopeful that the 2015 resolution on relegation and promotion will not be altered.
BY FORTUNE MBELE
Even though it has been suggested a decision was reached to have four teams going down to Division One as opposed to the two that had been agreed on, Zifa yesterday said the issue would be clarified in due course.
Since the season started, clubs were working on the understanding that only two teams would be relegated, and with Border Strikers having already lost the battle for survival, it had been down to Mutare City Rovers and Tsholotsho to see which team would also go down.
But the Zifa councillors’ meeting on Saturday has rocked a number of clubs, which will be dragged into relegation if a new resolution is passed.
If Zifa decides that four teams be relegated, it automatically sees Mutare City Rovers and Tsholotsho getting the chop, while Chapungu, Hwange and Triangle would be involved in a late scrap for survival.
Chapungu chief executive officer, Chris-Levine Mukotekwa bemoaned what he called unprofessionalism in the game.
The airmen are 13th on the log table with 31 points, and are left with a game away to Hwange and a home tie to Caps United.
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“Our chairman (Acroid Moyo) attended the Zifa meeting,” Mukotekwa said.
“I have read about it in the newspapers and (it’s) very unprofessional. How do you change goalposts with two games to go? I don’t understand where the regions are getting the mandate to reverse a resolution that was made last year. If that was the resolution, then it leaves us fighting relegation.”
Tsholotsho FC, who beat Highlanders on Saturday and moved to 26 points to swap places with Mutare City Rovers, remain hopeful that nothing is changed.
“I attended that meeting and that was not a resolution,” Tsholotsho club chairman Mlamuli Phiri said.
“The councillors raised a motion to reverse the decision to relegate two teams and there was discontent until that meeting was closed before anything was finished. We did not agree on anything. Fifty-four councillors attended that meeting and only 41 voted and the others had gone and did not take part.”
Mutare City Rovers chairman Isdore Bingura said the Saturday meeting was riddled with flaws.
“The whole process was not done properly. The play-offs issue was not on the agenda. We tried to resist, but to no avail and from how things happened, you could see that it was something that had been planned. Even Lewis Uriri (Caps United board chairman) warned that due process was not followed, but no one would dare listen. But no resolution was made, and as Mutare City, we will play our last two matches and try to end on position 14 and see what will happen,” he said.
The storm on relegation and promotion was torched off by the reluctance of both Zifa and the PSL to fund the play-offs featuring the four Division One champions, where two teams would earn promotion to the top-flight.
The Zifa congress resolved in 2015 that two teams would be promoted and demoted after the 2016 season, with the PSL funding the promotional play-offs.
