adminRay Bande Senior Reporter
ZIMBABWE Prisons and Correctional Services are keen to have their Mutare-based outfit Tenax compete in the Castle Lager Premiership football this year.
The uniformed forces have strongly refuted claims that they have sold the newly-promoted side’s franchise to relegated TelOne as “baseless, malicious and mischievous”.
Football fans in Manicaland were riled by news that TelOne will bounce back into the top-flight league for this year’s edition after successfully acquiring a franchise from Tenax who won promotion from the ZIFA Eastern Region Division One last year.
ZPCS national sports officer Richard Tarangeyi said: “I am equally shocked by news circulating to the effect that the organisation (ZPCS) has sold the Tenax franchise.
“At a time that Tenax are busy preparing for the oncoming season, some sections, for unknown reasons, found it prudent to destabilise the team by circulating falsehoods.
“All I know is that Tenax are going to play in the top-flight league. That is the position that I have. If anything latest comes from management we will duly and professionally inform the public not through rumours. All I can say the two teams — Tenax and WhaWha — are going to play (in the Premiership this season). No franchise of either team is on sale.”
The article, which quotes unnamed sources and published by a local private newspaper, alleges that lack of resources has driven ZPCS to dispose of one of its two franchises in the top-flight after WhaWha were also promoted from the ZIFA Central Region Division One.
The article further purports that the correctional services institution would still have been forced to relinquish one slot in the top division as PSL rules do not allow them to have two teams in the same league.
However, not so long ago in 2015, Flame Lily played in the same top-flight season with fellow correctional services outfit WhaWha.
In fact, towards the end of the 2015 season, Flame Lily became a relegation candidate f when they were restricted by WhaWha at Ascot when they needed nothing short of victory to enhance their mathematical chance of remaining in the Premiership.
Army teams Buffaloes and Black Rhinos have played in the top-flight league during the same season on numerous occasions.
This year Rhinos and newcomers Cranborne Bullets, another army side, are set to be part of the Premiership.
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