admin
“We would like to thank you for your patience and continued support through these difficult times. We now invite you to join the Hardbody family as we prepare for our maiden season in the PSL. The return of premiership football to Gweru and the Midlands Province. Ascot Stadium pahasha 2012 bhora. We thank you.”
The story of the Central Region was well written and read last season and what football followers were waiting for was its conclusion. I might not have been personally or emotionally involved in the whole fiasco, as I do not even know who is behind Hardbody and who is behind Tripple B, but I felt relieved that at last that madness is over. And I hope there is closure to the Northern Region circus soon so that we can start the 2012 PSL season on a good footing.
We cannot have a situation whereby football has to be decided in boardrooms every time. It’s bad for the game. The boardroom is for the signing of sponsorship deals and the winners should be decided on the field of play. That is how football should shape up and the Central Region administrators have a tall order to bring back normalcy and trust.
It becomes difficult to trust them when they allowed a player to feature in their league using a false name, and in that small town of Gweru no one raised a finger.
The whole mess was created by the secretariat in the Central Region as the controversial player was last season registered to play for Hardbody by Zifa, with all the needed documentation, since Hardbody were now getting the player from a local side, not from Namibia, and with that scenario, it should have been clear to Tripple B that they were bound to lose the case.
And to make matters worse, the disciplinary committee used rules and regulations that were yet to be endorsed by the Zifa Assembly and when Hardbody were docked 42 points, the Appeals Committee overturned the verdict of the Disciplinary Committee in that it was using rules and regulations that were not yet lawful. And when Tripple B took the matter up with the Commercial Arbitration Centre, the issue of wrong rules used still came up.
Part of the statement from the Arbitration Centre read: “Accordingly, it (Appeals Committee) went on to hold: ‘It admits of no doubt that Appellant was charged, disciplined, convicted and even sentenced on the basis of non-existent law or legislation. The conduct charges faced by the Appellant are not contained in the 1996 Rules and Regulations and neither are the sanctions. Zifa has not yet adopted the rules and regulations used in casu and as such there is no way one can be charged under such supposed statute when such statute has no force of law. A statute can only become a law and enforceable after it has been adopted and duly gazetted to clothe itself with the force of law. Other than that, it remains a draft just like in the present scenario.
“There is no way that Appellant can be charged with and convicted of contravening a non-existing law or statute. He ought to have been properly charged in terms of the 1996 rules and regulations.
“The Arbitral Tribunal cannot close its eyes to the reality of the situation as revealed by the Appeals Committee in the Mugandani judgment. But even if the Arbitral Tribunal were to do so, the finding, nevertheless, would be that the Appeals Committee in the present matter, on the information before it, reached a correct conclusion. It follows, therefore, that the appeal is without merit.
“The order: (1) The appeal is dismissed in its entirety. (2) Tripple B FC is to pay the costs of this appeal, including the fees levied by the Arbitral Panel in the hearing thereof.”
What this means is Beitbridge based Tripple B have wasted their time, energy and finances on a losing course. Hopefully they will still find the strength to fight it on the pitch this season and realise their dream of playing in the Premiership. As they say, there is always next time!
We hope such incompetency, as witnessed in the Central Region, will be a thing of the past with the introduction of the multipurpose central data processing system for player registration by Zifa at their headquarters.
The device will help in detecting irregular player registrations and transfers as all Zifa affiliates from provinces, regions and the Premiership will be required to enter their players’ data into the football mother body system.
“Many countries worldwide are using the Transfer Matching System to monitor player movements as well as registration. We have appointed a full-time manager and we hope to get favourable response from all stakeholders as they have been notified about the change in the registration system.
“This development also means that licences for all affiliates, that is PSL, the four regions for Division One Soccer League, Division Two down to junior football, will be produced by Zifa. We want to address the problem of irregular transfers,” said Zifa CEO, Jonathan Mashingaidze recently.
The device will also be used to collect players’ and clubs’ statistics. The multi-purpose central data processing system is also expected to help in combating age-cheating. Issues of age-cheating have been rampant in Zimbabwean soccer especially at junior levels and that, according to some sectors, has contributed to underdevelopment of local football.
“There are growing concerns over most of our players who have been fingered in matters of age-cheating in the past. Age-cheating allegations or scandals taint the image of our game and at the end of the day, it’s the players who suffer when they want to move.
“Fifa gave us multi-purpose equipment to capture players’ data right from the juniors. What happens is that this device will help us store players’ information from Under-13s, -15 and -17. Whenever a player is called for junior provincial tournaments, their details will be recorded and should they decide to alter their ages later on, we will pounce on them because we will be having their original details. It’s like we will be keeping a player’s portfolio until they graduate for senior competition and with that information with us, it won’t be tampered with,” said Mashingaidze.
And finally, after all this noise, we hope Hardbody are not going to the elite league to make up numbers. For comments and contributions, email [email protected]
Online Reporter