Sports / Soccer
Castle PSL kickoff deferred
04 Mar 2018 at 20:24hrs | Views
THE 2018 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League [PSL] fixtures will be unveiled on Tuesday ahead of the start of the forthcoming season, which has been moved from Saturday to March 17.
PSL CEO Kenny Ndebele told Standardsport that they were finalising the fixtures programme after all the 18 clubs confirmed their participation in the new campaign.
Ndebele said the delay in the release of the fixtures programme was necessitated by the withdrawal of How Mine from the Premiership and the subsequent readmission of Harare City, which was ratified at the league's annual general meeting yesterday.
"All the clubs confirmed their participation in the 2018 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season and Harare City's readmission was also done. The fixtures should be out by Tuesday and the reason for the delay was due to the withdrawal of How Mine," he said.
"When we do the programme, we need to strike a balance with the venues into the fixture list and the coming-in of Harare City means we've got six clubs in Harare, so we need to come up with a balance with the available venues.
"We are happy that all the 18 clubs have confirmed their participation and we expect them to complete their player registration by Wednesday."
Ndebele said the Castle Lager Premiership was still "engaging those who tendered for the broadcasting rights" following the expiry of their six-year deal with SuperSport, adding that the rights "are not going to be exclusively to one company".
Standardsport understands that national broadcaster ZBC together with two radio stations are the only broadcasters who have expressed interest in acquiring the top-flight league's media visual broadcasting rights for this year.
Econet Media's Kwesé TV were initially linked with a deal with the PSL, but have since indicated that they do not have any plans to go into partnership with the domestic Premiership for now.
A Swiss company, Infront Sports and Media, and a local company, Dr Dish, have also been linked to the PSL television rights
PSL CEO Kenny Ndebele told Standardsport that they were finalising the fixtures programme after all the 18 clubs confirmed their participation in the new campaign.
Ndebele said the delay in the release of the fixtures programme was necessitated by the withdrawal of How Mine from the Premiership and the subsequent readmission of Harare City, which was ratified at the league's annual general meeting yesterday.
"All the clubs confirmed their participation in the 2018 Castle Lager Premier Soccer League season and Harare City's readmission was also done. The fixtures should be out by Tuesday and the reason for the delay was due to the withdrawal of How Mine," he said.
"When we do the programme, we need to strike a balance with the venues into the fixture list and the coming-in of Harare City means we've got six clubs in Harare, so we need to come up with a balance with the available venues.
Ndebele said the Castle Lager Premiership was still "engaging those who tendered for the broadcasting rights" following the expiry of their six-year deal with SuperSport, adding that the rights "are not going to be exclusively to one company".
Standardsport understands that national broadcaster ZBC together with two radio stations are the only broadcasters who have expressed interest in acquiring the top-flight league's media visual broadcasting rights for this year.
Econet Media's Kwesé TV were initially linked with a deal with the PSL, but have since indicated that they do not have any plans to go into partnership with the domestic Premiership for now.
A Swiss company, Infront Sports and Media, and a local company, Dr Dish, have also been linked to the PSL television rights
Source - the standard
