Zifa indaba for January

Raymond Jaravaza Aï¿½
THE year 2016 will end in a stalemate only for the dog fight between Zifa and the Premier Soccer League to resume first week of January next year.

The two are at loggerheads over the number of teams that will be promoted into the elite league next season.

The confusion has not settled well with sponsors and there are fears that the issue among other backroom squabbles could end badly with the league going without a sponsor next season.

As such, an Emergency General Meeting (EGM) where football councillors will convene in Harare has been scheduled for January to find a lasting solution to the relegation aï¿½ï¿½ promotion impasse.

The PSL wants Zifa to respect an earlier resolution that agreed to relegate two teams and promote the same number of teams from the four regional winners through promotional playoffs.

Zifa on the other hand wants all its four regional champions promoted to the Premiership.

aï¿½?Football people will meet and come up with football solutions to the relegation and promotion crisis.

aï¿½?Remember it was a Zifa congress that made a resolution to relegate four teams and it is only congress that can change that so a committee chaired by Piraishe Mabhena has made recommendations that the congress will deliberate on and ratify.

aï¿½?The date for the EGM will be announced in due course,aï¿½? said Zifa vice-president Omega Sibanda.

The Zifa and PSL impasse has left clubs such as the winners of the Zifa Southern Region leagueAï¿½Aï¿½Aï¿½ Bantu Rovers in limbo as they cannot plan accordingly in preparation for the 2017Aï¿½ season in the absence of a clear solution.

Even extending their playersaï¿½ï¿½ contracts that are due to expire on 31 December is proving to be a mammoth task.

Bantu Rovers general manager Wilbert Sibanda told our sister paper Chronicle Sport that the Zifa and PSL impasse had left the club in a predicament.

aï¿½?We are in a predicament because 75 percent of our playersaï¿½ï¿½ contracts expire on 31 December and itaï¿½ï¿½s difficult to negotiate for contract extensions when we donaï¿½ï¿½t know how the relegation-promotion impasse will pan out.

aï¿½?Not knowing where we stand obviously makes things very difficult from a planning point of view,aï¿½? said Sibanda.