Editorial Comment: Motor Action should have complied with PSL, but . . .

part of the shirts, plunged the Charity Shield into a farce.
It even got worse, on the second weekend of the league programme, when the Premiership tie between CAPS United and Chicken Inn was abandoned, minutes into time added on, after the Green Machine fans rained missiles onto the pitch at Gwanzura.
On Sunday, we saw the chaos that characterised what was supposed to be a routine league match between Motor Action and CAPS United with the Mighty Bulls staying at Callies while Makepekepe pitched up at Gwanzura for a game that never was.
What was even more disappointing was that thousands of fans were ripped off by the PSL management committee, who promised them a league match at Gwanzura, forcing them to spend on transport and related costs to make the trip to Highfield, for a match that never was.
It’s such little things that paint a very bad picture of the PSL and once the league starts abusing the fans, the very patronage that it needs for its very existence, it becomes very clear that it is now living on borrowed times.
And, crucially, you can’t blame these fans in the event they decide to turn their back on the Premiership and, in a period where there is intense competition coming from the English Premiership and the Spanish La Liga, there is everything to lose for the domestic top-flight league.
In this era, when communication has been made very easy, we can’t understand how a dispute over the venue of a match can be left to creep into Match Day and result in the ugly images we saw on Sunday.
While Motor Action, as the home team, have a right to cry foul that their rights were trampled upon when the PSL management committee decided to move the game to Gwanzura, there was also an element of primitive arrogance on the part of the Mighty Bulls this past weekend.
When orders are given by the league’s leadership, they need to be followed, and, in the case of the PSL, Order 18 of their rules and regulations, which deals with fixtures, is very clear that the overall authority as to when and where a league match is to be played lies in the management committee.
That is why the management committee has the power to order a team to play at a neutral venue, in the event that it is found guilty of some offences, and why they hold the overall authority, working in tandem with Zifa, to declare whether a ground is eligible to host a match at this level.
Only three weeks ago we saw power being exercised by the Confederation of African Football when they ordered FC Platinum to host El-Merreikh of Sudan at Rufaro, instead of Mandava, because of a number of concerns shared by the Cairo-based organisation.
When the league decides, as it did at the weekend, that Callies, the home of Motor Action, did not provide the security structures needed, in such a charged game, to guarantee the safety of the fans, players and officials, its decision was final and needed to be respected.
Yes, Motor Action can cry foul, because they would make more money playing at Callies, where they don’t have to pay the 20 percent levy charged at council stadiums like Gwanzura, but there are more important things, in football, than a club’s financial requirements.
Therein lies the responsibility of the league’s leadership and should they expose thousands of people to a serious security risk, simply because they want to satisfy the financial requirements of Motor Action, they will become culpable in the event that disaster strikes.
Of course, conspiracy theorists will claim that Twine Phiri, the CAPS United president who is also the PSL chairman, had a hand in a shadowy plot to keep the Green Machine away from Callies and take the game to Gwanzura where his team stood a better chance of winning.
But this is the same stadium where CAPS United lost 0-2 to Chicken Inn just a week ago and, for good measure, it is not even their home ground because they have the National Sports Stadium as their home ground and Rufaro as their alternative venue. There could be flaws, here and there, in the decision-making or reasons related to that decision-making that resulted in the game being shifted from Callies to Gwanzura but once a decision had been passed, it had to be respected, because once we abandon that principle, we invite anarchy.
We have a system in football that works in tandem, with one part helping the other, leading to a stage where we have two teams at one match venue either on a Saturday or Sunday and referees, security personnel and related staff, also turning up at the same venue.
Referees are directly under Zifa and they could not have just dreamt of going to Gwanzura, instead of Callies, as was the case on Sunday, which means that a directive was indeed given by the mother body’s arms for them to be at Gwanzura.
Eric Rosen and his team should have complied with the directive, and then raised their issues later, rather than play the stubborn bull that plunged the game into disrepute.
By taking all their home games against Dynamos to Rufaro, Motor Action clearly leave themselves exposed to the league’s orders to one day move their home match against any team, as and when the league feels Callies is not secure enough to guarantee the safety of players, officials and fans, as they did on Sunday.