Juju beliefs worries PSL

PREMIER Soccer League chief executive Kenny Ndebele is worried by the resurgence of superstitious beliefs among some clubs.

Ndebele said despite improvements in some aspects of the way the local game is managed, including plugging leakages at the turnstiles, a lot still needed to be done."The belief in juju is rearing its ugly head again after it had appeared to die down in the last few years where the only ritual that we saw was prayers by teams.

"It is embarrassing the way some of these teams go about their rituals and now that we are having more and more games being screened live, some of these acts are captured by the TV cameras and people are seen spraying all sorts of things or even scaling fences instead of using the designated entry points.

"Although we have set fines for that, the pictures of juju rituals do a lot of harm to our image as a brand and eventually no one will want to partner with such acts," Ndebele said.

The PSL boss also believes clubs needed to be more aggressive in marketing their brands, especially against the backdrop of a tough economic environment.

"We want to hear clubs talk about their sponsors, about their activities and boosting their brands. We have a club like Shabanie Mine that is turning 100 years this year and the question to ask is what are they doing about it?

"They should not be remembered for the wrong things on their 100th anniversary. Dynamos turned 50 last year and what a wasted year with nothing to celebrate their Golden Jubilee".

Ndebele also said it was imperative that Zifa set up a committee that would speed up the implementation of the new club licensing policy, which is also aimed at ensuring that local clubs are professionally administered.

"We are facing a challenge with club licencising and going forward, Zifa should quickly set up a licensing board that would help speed up the process.

"Half the teams are still to give us their constitutions  and where there are disputes or changes we cannot really assist with conflict resolutions for instance at Harare City where they  say they have a new executive but Leslie Gwindi insists he is still in charge".

Ndebele also spoke about Zimbabwean teams' poor run in the continental competitions in the last four years.

"We need to critically assess our participation in Africa and decide whether we are going in there to learn or to win the Cup because winning the Champions League or the Confederation Cup needs more resources and it is different from going in there to learn.

"The PSL should also develop players for the national team and we are not doing enough in that regard at the moment. We need to develop players so that when we criticise the national coach we should be able to pinpoint the players that should have been included in the squad but would have been omitted. At the moment we do not have one player whom we can cry out and say should have been included in the Warriors but was left out," Ndebele said.

Ndebele also indicated that the PSL had taken note of the euphoria around the on-going World Cup in Brazil.

"Where World Cup games are starting at 6pm and we may have to bring forward our kick-off times and start early to enable the fans to watch both the local matches and the World Cup games".