Chronicle Editor
Petros Kausiyo Deputy Sports Editor—
THE Premier Soccer League have set their parameters ahead of their crucial meeting with ZIFA aimed at resolving the impasse between the two parties, torched by disagreement over the number of teams to be demoted and promoted into the top-flight body.ZIFA board member competitions Piraishe Mabhena is on Saturday expected to chair a meeting between the association’s regional chairmen and members of the PSL emergency committee in the capital.
The meeting comes as a result of the ZIFA board meeting held at the weekend at which the soccer mother resolved to set up a committee of representatives for both parties to try and find a solution to the dispute that has left a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the fate of lowly placed Premiership clubs and those teams that had won the Division One Leagues across the country’s four regions.
Black Rhinos, Yadah Stars, Bantu Rovers and Shabanie Mine had been crowned the champions in their respective regions.
But that quartet will have to a little longer before they can pop the champagne bottles and confirm whether they will have Premiership status as the league has remained adamant that only two teams would go up after a round play-offs to determine, who replaces Border Strikers and Mutare City.
The PSL are expected to fund the play-offs in line with an earlier agreement that preceded the ZIFA congress of October 29.
While the PSL have stuck to their guns “on two in and two down”, the ZIFA regional chairpersons have now reportedly been pushing to have the four Division One champions promoted automatically with two teams being relegated.
This would effectively mean expanding the PSL to an 18 team entity, a move which PSL emergency committee spokesman Lewis Uriri said would also call for constitutional amendments of both the ZIFA and the league’s statutes.
Mabhena said he would only be in a position to discuss the relegation-promotion issue in detail after Saturday’s meeting.
PSL are also demanding the reinstatement of their suspended chairman Peter Dube, arguing that he was not acting in his personal capacity when he committed the said offence that invited ZIFA sanctions but was carrying out his mandate as the league’s leader.
Uriri insisted yesterday that despite the league’s “willingness to engage and find an amicable solution”, the top-flight would not use Saturday’s indaba as a condition to drop the matter they are pursuing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.
“As matters stand, we understand there is a compromise being worked on but our positions is two down wand two up.
“PSL is committed to an amicable resolution for this matter and we are amenable to engagement but we have six-point plan which stipulates the basic minimum conditions we believe should be met,” Uriri said.
One of the key areas that the PSL want clarified on, Uriri said, is “defining what the dispute is in order to resolve matters” and the PSL emergency committee spokesman has since communicated the league’s position to ZIFA through the association’s acting chief executive Joseph Mamutse.
“We have been invited to a meeting on Saturday and we will attend it but we will not be submitting until the matters that we have raised in the position paper have been addressed.
“The emergency committee is what it is, an emergency committee and it would have to make recommendations to congress,” said Uriri.
In that position paper PSL want:
“ZIFA and the ZIFA Division 1 Regions to accept that any possible engagement is without prejudice and subject to a full and unconditional reservation of rights by all parties concerned.
“The engagement is specifically without prejudice to the process pending before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), unless there is an agreement reached and recorded in writing and signed on behalf of all parties. The agreement must be adopted by both the ZIFA and PSL Congresses,” Uriri said.
Uriri also said Saturday’s meeting would not replace the arbitration process that PSL clubs had sought at CAS.
“The process is neither conciliation nor mediation nor arbitration. The PSL, having requested arbitration by CAS, has not submitted and does not by this process submit to a parallel process, the effect of which is to stay the CAS proceedings pending the outcome of such process. The engagement is, therefore, not a domestic remedy which must be exhausted before the CAS proceedings can be proceeded with.
“We also demand the unconditional lifting of Peter Dube’s suspension and we believe the PSL cannot enter into any meaningful engagement without its chairman.
“We can attend the Saturday meeting but we cannot have any binding resolution without congress approval, we can only come up with.
“Peter Dube is the Chairman of the PSL. He was purportedly ‘suspended’ in the course and within the scope of executing his mandate as PSL Chairman.
“His ‘crime’ was that he signed the letter sent to the ZIFA President on 2 November 2016.
“The letter was specifically mandated by a resolution of the PSL of the 29th October 2016.
“The PSL and its individual member clubs take collective responsibility for the said letter.
“There must be acceptance of the fact that the PSL as an affiliate of ZIFA is free to express its views on any matter affecting it as a private voluntary organisation, as well as any or all of its members without fear of reprisals.
“Peter Dube must lead the PSL team in his capacity as its chairman.
“He was elected for that purpose. The Emergency Committee has not and cannot substitute the office of the Chairman of the PSL.
“It is only acting as a matter of necessity”.
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