adminPetros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor
ZIFA and the Premier Soccer League would in the next few weeks have to find a solution and avoid friction over the number of teams to be demoted from the top-flight body this year and end the uncertainty that is currently clouding the promotion of Division sides.PSL chief executive Kenny Ndebele said yesterday they were awaiting clarification from Zifa after making strong representations to the soccer mother body during the constitutional reform process to have a reduction on the number of teams that would be relegated from the top-flight body.
The PSL has 16 teams and the league’s chiefs and their member clubs are not happy that four teams are demoted at the end of each year to accommodate the respective winners from the Northern, Southern Eastern and Central regions.
Ndebele said they had been made to believe that the move to reduce from four to two, the number of teams to be relegated, would be implemented this season but had been taken aback to note that the regional leagues were still in place and their teams were getting ready to fight for Premiership promotion without a clear policy guideline.
“I thought we had agreed on two teams being relegated from the Premier Soccer League and we raised our arguments when consultations for the amendments to the constitution were being done but I was taken aback to note that there is clarity yet on the matter and I think the Zifa chief executive is best placed to handle the matter,’’ Ndebele said.
Zifa chief executive Jonathan Mashingaidze acknowledged that the PSL had “raised genuine concerns on the composition of the number of teams to be relegated’’. Mashingaidze said the recently elected Zifa board would at their first indaba in Harare today, also table the matter ahead of “further engagements with the PSL and the regions’’.
“The new board will at their meeting in Harare tomorrow discuss the issue beyond which we are going to engage the regions and the PSL extensively so that a resolution is made.
“PSL had complained about four teams because they feel the league cannot continue to lose 25 percent of its teams at the end of every season. The board will be seized with the matter and ensure that there a proper roadmap to get the matter resolved beyond tomorrow and ahead of the Special General Meeting of the assembly in May.
“So, between now and that SGM in May, there will be a lot of consultations and engagements on the issue of the promotion and relegation. The assembly will at that meeting also officially retire the 1996 rules and regulations and adopt those that fall in line with the new constitution and the current international trends.
“In fact there is provision in the new constitution for the setting up of a national First Division League which ideally is what we should have,’’ Mashingaidze said.
But with the four regional Division One leagues already involved in the 2014 action under the old set up, there are strong indications that the PSL may have to grapple with status quo — relegating four teams — for yet another season.
Just the PSL, the Northern and Southern regions enter the second week of their 2014 programmes while the Eastern region is scheduled to burst into life this afternoon.
Apart from discussing the contentious issue of the PSL relegation, the Zifa board is expected to receive hand-over, take-over reports from the leadership that took charge of the game between 2010-2014.
“Outgoing Zifa vice-president Ndumiso Gumede will lead the hand-over-take-over process and once the reports have been presented it will make the new board aware of the issues that have been obtaining in the game and this is necessary in order to avoid a situation where a leadership comes in but have to find their way around without any indication or update on the state of the game.
“Fifa have also indicated that they are going to provide support for the staging of the strategic planning workshop and for the induction of the new board,’’ Mashingaidze said.
Four new members —vice-president Omega Sibanda, Women’s Football boss Miriam Sibanda, who is away in South Africa with the Mighty Warriors, former PSL board member Tawengwa Hara and Bernard Gwarada — have joined the Zifa leadership.
The quarter of Zifa president Cuthbert Dube, PSL chairman Twine Phiri, former Eastern region chairman Fungai Chihuri and Warriors legend John Phiri survived from the previous board when being retained for another four years.
Online Reporter