Online Reporter
Lovemore Dube
Zimpapers Sports Hub
WHEN the Premier Soccer League was born at the end of 1992, clubs broke away from ZIFA to take back control of their money and their future.
They wanted freedom.
They wanted power and they wanted to run their league. Three decades later that dream is hanging by a thread.
The past week exposed it in the most embarrassing fashion. ZIFA sparked chaos when chief executive Yvonne Manwa wrote to her PSL counterpart Rodwell Thabe asking the league to explore a 20-team set-up. It was a simple “discussion point” on paper but what followed showed just how shaky the PSL’s backbone has become.
Instead of shutting it down or reminding ZIFA that only the ZIFA Assembly can decide on relegation and membership, the PSL panicked.
Within days the league summoned clubs, rushed through a meeting, and passed a resolution so outrageous even ZIFA disowned it.
The same ZIFA that started the whole mess.
It was governance gone wrong.
CEOs discussing matters that belong to politicians. A league bending to pressure. Clubs scrambling without thinking.
And, at the centre of it all, the question no one wants to answer – who actually calls the shots in the PSL?
Promotion and relegation are not favours.
FIFA say they are the, essence of football.
You earn your place, you don’t get handed one.
But the PSL’s rushed move cracked that foundation and it opened a door to abuse.
It sent a message that rules can be bent when convenient.
Take Kwekwe United, for example.
One win in 34 matches and somehow they were about to get a lifeline into the 2026 Premiership?
Fans who work for their tickets would call that daylight robbery. And they would be right.
Even worse, some of the league’s biggest voices stepped aside. Ngezi Platinum and Herentals didn’t vote. Chicken Inn and FC Platinum voted against the madness. The rest nodded along and pushed the PSL closer back into ZIFA’s waiting arms.
The irony cuts deep.
The same league that once broke free to protect its autonomy now looks like it has surrendered it all over again. The soul of the PSL, the very reason it exists, is slipping away.
And fans know it.
They can smell when something is off. This episode stank from the start.
If the PSL cannot stand firm on something as basic as promotion and relegation then, maybe, the real question is no longer whether the league has lost its autonomy. Maybe it’s this – did the PSL just give it away?
