Harare City win appeal, go to PSL

One Championship last season.
This revelation emerged following investigations by the Zifa Northern Region Division One executive as they moved to put finality the championship wrangle from their league.
Harare City will be officially promoted to play in the Premiership in a judgment set to be delivered today, according to sources.
Initially, Harare City had been crowned the Division One champions after finishing the league with 51 points from 26 games in October last year.
But their celebrations were put on ice as second-placed Dstv Rangers lodged a complaint with Zifa that the City Fathers had used an eligible player in Muronda.
In their claim, Dstv said Muronda had been registered to play for AMC in the Zifa Eastern Region Division One but then featured in six games for Harare City.
A three-member Zifa committee of chairman Misheck Hogwe, Andrew Pamire and Francis Mabika then deducted 18 points from Harare City’s tally.
The new twist in January meant that Dstv were the new winners of the Premiership slot and the side met on January 14 to plan for their life in the PSL.
But, Harare City appealed against the decision to dock them 18 points and the issue threatened to derail the start of the Premiership as the saga dragged on.
The Appeals Committee then threw the matter back to the Zifa Northern Region who made further investigations and found that Muronda had been off-loaded by AMC.
The former Sporting Lions player had been issued with a licence number 0408 during the first half of the season and later turned out for Harare City in the second half of the season.
In a verdict set to be delivered today, Harare City will be confirmed winners of the ticket to the Premiership, putting a close to one sad chapter of chaos in domestic football.
The verdict will give Bigboy Mawiwi’s side the sole ticket to the elite league as they now have 51 points while Dstv Rangers remain second on 50 points.
“According to the investigations, it was found that AMC had actually cleared Muronda in March.
“They actually wrote a letter terminating his contract and this was the basis used by Harare City to register him. It appears the twist to case was administrative instead of a disciplinary one as AMC had also written a letter to Black Rhinos later claiming that the player was still contracted to them.
“However, AMC told Zifa to disregard the later correspondence. Effectively this means Muronda was eligible to play for Harare and this throws out Dstv’s case,” said the sources.
While the championship dispute for the Northern Region has been settled, the drama continues to unfold in the Central Region where Tripple B and Hardbody are tussling for the sole ticket.
Hardbody won promotion into the Premiership but had 42 points docked after they were found guilty of using an improperly registered player in Tatenda Chingarah.
Just like Harare City, Hardbody appealed and Zifa restored the 42 points last month.
But no sooner had Hardbody celebrated their relief than Tripple B launched another appeal and the case is now set for Arbitration where a decision is expected soon.