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Ngqwele Dube Sports Correspondent
ZIFA has backed the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League on reducing the number of relegated teams from the current four to two, but the question that remains is the format to be used as there are four regional Division One leagues in the country.The PSL last year lobbied the Zifa Assembly to change the relegation and promotion format for PSL and Division One teams but they were rebuffed as the football decision making body felt there was a need for a national first division league as per the Zifa constitution.
Zifa chief executive officer Jonathan Mashingaidze said they were very supportive of the PSL’s intention to have two teams being demoted as chucking out 25 percent of the teams at the end of each season was not in the interest of the topflight league.
He said while the Zifa Assembly had last year rejected the change of the relegation rules, it had been a temporary decision while they sought a solution.
“In July the Assembly felt that in the absence of a national first division we should retain the status quo for the interim as the initial idea was to have the NFD but now we have to look at how to go about it.
“However, in principle there is a general agreement across the board that only two teams should be given the chop from the PSL not the current four. We have also captured this in our draft rules and regulations and the amended constitution,” said Mashingaidze.
There are four Division One regional leagues in the country, namely Southern, Northern, Eastern and Central and each team that comes out tops in each of the respective groupings gains automatic promotion to the PSL.
Mashingaidze said they would need to have two strong regional leagues if funds to run an NFD were not secured.
Due to the nature of lower division football, NFD teams would need to be funded with grants that would enable them to fulfil expenses such as travelling and accommodation because there is little income accrued from playing in Division One.
Mashingaidze brushed aside the idea of holding play-offs involving the four teams that would have clinched the championship in the respective four regional leagues saying that was likely to breed corruption adding that the right route to follow would be to have automatic qualification and demotion.
“I think we have learnt a bitter lesson that there is a lot of manipulation in local soccer and play-offs would be the easiest target. Yes, they might be the norm in other countries but our situation is different and what we have gone through previously has not been encouraging,” said Mashingaidze.
He said it was an issue that would have to be discussed and dealt with during the Zifa Assembly’s next meeting.
PSL chief executive officer, Kennedy Ndebele told our Harare Bureau they had upped their lobby on Zifa to review the relegation issue to ensure only two teams were demoted at the end of the 2015 season. And that was important that the issue be resolved before the new season began.
“The PSL body will lobby the Zifa president (Cuthbert Dube) and the councillors through their regional chairmen to have the relegation matter discussed and resolved. We would want our secretariat to also soon start designing the fixture programme and we are looking at starting the season early around the first weekend of March
“We will also need to stick to the dates of the knockout tournaments and we are going to address that with the sponsors because this year we had a number of changes to the original dates for the cup games, which is undesirable. We will also factor in the continental fixtures,’’ Ndebele was quoted saying.
Online Reporter