adminRay Bande Senior Sports Reporter
THE Premier Soccer League authorities must seriously consider increasing the number of clubs to 18 from the current 16, by accommodating four winners from the four regions and relegate only two basement clubs at the end of this season, a senior Zifa official has proposed.
Zifa Eastern Region boss, Piraishe Mabhena, told this publication in a wide-ranging interview on the sidelines of the regional body’s EGM at a local hotel last Saturday that the current scenario in which the country’s flagship football league relegates four teams out of 16 at the end of each season works against the development of the sport.
The Chiredzi-based football administrator’s sentiments come hard on the heels of the PSL’s suggestion to relegate two bottom-placed sides at the end of the season and have the teams that finish top in the respective four Division One regions involved in play-offs to decide the final two representatives for the Premiership.
The suggestion by PSL, which was, however, shot down at the recent Zifa Assembly meeting in Harare, would leave the number of teams in the top-flight leagues at the current 16.
The prospect of having the four Division One sides playing for the two tickets for promotion after a gruelling season was not welcomed, especially by authorities in the four regions.
“On this issue, I find myself in a Catch 22 situation. I am coming from a region which has three teams in the Premiership, all of whom are doing quite good.
“A situation that leaves 25 percent of the clubs being relegated at the end of the season might leave my region without a single Premiership team.
“If I had it my way, I would suggest that we increase the number of clubs in the Premiership to 18 from the current 16 by accommodating four winners from the four regions and relegate only two basement clubs at the end of this season. I do not think relegating 25 percent of the teams after one season is healthy and in tandem with the development of the sport,” he said.
Mabhena and the like-minded lend credence from the fact that most major leagues across the globe do not relegate as huge as 25 percent of their teams at the end of every season, while they have more than 16 teams in their respective top-flight leagues.
The English Premiership, for example, has 20 teams each season and relegates the bottom three at the end, while the Spanish La Liga also has 20 teams and, likewise, relegates three at the end of the season.
The German Bundesliga has 18 clubs and relegates three, while the Italian Serie A also relegates three sides from its 20-team league. In South Africa, the Absa Premiership is made up of 16 clubs and automatically relegates two at the end of each season.
In a recent interview with this newspaper, PSL chief executive Kennedy Ndebele, a strong proponent of the idea to relegate only two teams, lamented the adherence to a system that allows 25 percent of the teams to be relegated after every season.
However, Ndebele decried the lack of adequate clubs with the pedigree to take part in Premiership competition hence the need to keep the numbers at 16.
“This is not about being adamant but it is a decision that was taken in the presence of Fifa representatives and we cannot allow ourselves to have a culture of policy inconsistency.
“In any case, we were relegating four teams at the end of each season and that constitutes about 25 percent of the total number of clubs in the league. Do you really think there is any meaningful development that we can achieve if we keep changing clubs?
“After all, do we have the clubs in Division One that can come and compete effectively or it would just be a matter of having clubs coming in and going out at the end of the season?” said Ndebele.
Online Reporter