Sports / Soccer
Relegated PSL clubs refuse to be relegated
06 Dec 2011 at 06:31hrs | Views
ZIFA and the Castle Lager Premier Soccer League seem to be throwing the issue of the petition signed by four relegated teams back and forth with none wanting to address it.
Masvingo United, Shooting Stars, Zimbabwe Saints and Kiglon signed a petition early this week protesting their relegation from the Premier League which they deem as "unfair".
PSL chairman Twine Phiri declined to comment on the issue referring all questions to the league's chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele.
"We will wait and hear what Zifa says on that issue. At the moment we have no comment because the petition was addressed to Zifa," he said.
Early this week Zifa said the petition was meant to be addressed to the league not them but however said it was likely to be discussed at their assembly.
Kiglon chief executive officer, Thompson Dondo said they had come up with the petition because they felt that the issue of match-fixing by referees had to be solved first before relegation could take place.
"If Zifa does not trust their own referees how then do they handle top flight matches? We work with these referees for about 10 months and Zifa did not want to work with them for the two games that they brought in foreign referees," he said.
Dondo said they believed that no team was meant to be relegated this season considering that Zifa did not trust local referees and this was proved by their decision to bring in referees from South Africa and Zambia.
"The PSL should not relegate any teams this season. They do not have trust in their own referees. What they would be saying if they relegate us is that we are not important," he said.
Dondo said they had not received a response from Zifa and would make a follow up this week.
Zimbabwe Saints drew against Black Mambas 1-1, Masvingo beat Highlanders 1-0, Kiglon lost 1-2 to Hwange and Shooting Stars won 2-0 against Blue Ribbon in the final matches of the season.
Mashingaidze said they felt that the petition should be discussed at their assembly as it was a policy issue.
"At the assembly, that is where such issues will be discussed. That is also where all the other issues will be discussed as well," he said.
According to the PSL a petition should have two-thirds of the league's signatures which translates to about 10 teams signing it.
The petition came about after a number of referees were fingered in match-fixing scandals which were triggered by allegations of biased officiating.
A committee was tasked to investigate the allegations of match-fixing with one of the matches that could be under the spotlight being the Zimbabwe Saints-Motor Action match.
Zimbabwe Saints had also indicated that they would be engaging the responsible authorities on the allegations of match-fixing.
Nyoni was suspended together with the committee's vice-chairperson Samukeliso Silengane and Central Region representative Cedric Manengedze Raisi.
A number of officials have since been fingered for their role in the match-fixing scandal.
Below is the petition that was copied to Zifa president, Zifa council and Zifa Committee:
Background
"The issues at the heart of this petition have been described by many including high profile sporting figures, football administrators and our own local governing body as more greater threats to the integrity of football than doping.
The threats that we have are of match-fixing and also the seeking and soliciting of bribes by our local referees prior to every important match.
The most powerful guardian of football Sepp Blatter said in his opening speech at the Sports Funding, Sponsoring and Sports Betting Congress in Zurich recently that match-fixing shakes the very foundations of sport, namely fair play, respect and discipline. He also said that it is the reason why Fifa employs a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to any infringement of these values. We must also employ the same policy in Zimbabwe to safeguard our game.
The just-ended 2011 season was the most difficult one to us as the PSL relegated clubs. We are happy though to say that all clubs managed to fulfill all their fixtures despite the extremely difficult conditions that we were playing under. The season was the most criminal of all. There was a lot of match-fixing and in the process serious violations of the rules of the game. Most of our matches were played to completely or partially pre-determined results and all the influence was coming from the referees and corrupt match officials. The integrity of the game today remains an ongoing concern to all in football.
The Zifa chairman's directive that the Mbada semi final games and the final be handled by foreign referees was a clear vote of no confidence in our local referees. Everyone involved in football today including the fans said thumbs up to the noble idea. To us the idea made sense and those who watched the semi final games will agree with us that there was fair play. If we had these foreign referees coming to take charge of local games every week, we definitely would be having a different scenario today.
Yes the loser is always at fault but we must point it out that if the Zifa board does not have confidence with the local referees then how do they trust the same referees to handle the league games. It follows to say that our small little teams without deep pockets were obviously affected badly. We lost dismally. We failed on most of the games to pay up. The sad part is that besides having to pay up for extra protection from the referees we also were supposed to pay the normal match fees to the same panel of officials. It became very difficult to keep up paying and for us who clearly failed, we lost a lot of games and in the end we found ourselves relegated.
Petition
We, the undersigned, strongly oppose that any team in the just- ended PSL League be relegated to Division One. The playing field was not fair. The whole referees' committee, the referees' conducts, the referees' selection and their monitoring system needs urgent overhaul. The system is too susceptible to influence, too corrupt, too fundamentally lacking in transparency. Thank you."
Masvingo United, Shooting Stars, Zimbabwe Saints and Kiglon signed a petition early this week protesting their relegation from the Premier League which they deem as "unfair".
PSL chairman Twine Phiri declined to comment on the issue referring all questions to the league's chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele.
"We will wait and hear what Zifa says on that issue. At the moment we have no comment because the petition was addressed to Zifa," he said.
Early this week Zifa said the petition was meant to be addressed to the league not them but however said it was likely to be discussed at their assembly.
Kiglon chief executive officer, Thompson Dondo said they had come up with the petition because they felt that the issue of match-fixing by referees had to be solved first before relegation could take place.
"If Zifa does not trust their own referees how then do they handle top flight matches? We work with these referees for about 10 months and Zifa did not want to work with them for the two games that they brought in foreign referees," he said.
Dondo said they believed that no team was meant to be relegated this season considering that Zifa did not trust local referees and this was proved by their decision to bring in referees from South Africa and Zambia.
"The PSL should not relegate any teams this season. They do not have trust in their own referees. What they would be saying if they relegate us is that we are not important," he said.
Dondo said they had not received a response from Zifa and would make a follow up this week.
Zimbabwe Saints drew against Black Mambas 1-1, Masvingo beat Highlanders 1-0, Kiglon lost 1-2 to Hwange and Shooting Stars won 2-0 against Blue Ribbon in the final matches of the season.
Mashingaidze said they felt that the petition should be discussed at their assembly as it was a policy issue.
"At the assembly, that is where such issues will be discussed. That is also where all the other issues will be discussed as well," he said.
According to the PSL a petition should have two-thirds of the league's signatures which translates to about 10 teams signing it.
The petition came about after a number of referees were fingered in match-fixing scandals which were triggered by allegations of biased officiating.
A committee was tasked to investigate the allegations of match-fixing with one of the matches that could be under the spotlight being the Zimbabwe Saints-Motor Action match.
Zimbabwe Saints had also indicated that they would be engaging the responsible authorities on the allegations of match-fixing.
Nyoni was suspended together with the committee's vice-chairperson Samukeliso Silengane and Central Region representative Cedric Manengedze Raisi.
A number of officials have since been fingered for their role in the match-fixing scandal.
Below is the petition that was copied to Zifa president, Zifa council and Zifa Committee:
Background
"The issues at the heart of this petition have been described by many including high profile sporting figures, football administrators and our own local governing body as more greater threats to the integrity of football than doping.
The threats that we have are of match-fixing and also the seeking and soliciting of bribes by our local referees prior to every important match.
The most powerful guardian of football Sepp Blatter said in his opening speech at the Sports Funding, Sponsoring and Sports Betting Congress in Zurich recently that match-fixing shakes the very foundations of sport, namely fair play, respect and discipline. He also said that it is the reason why Fifa employs a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to any infringement of these values. We must also employ the same policy in Zimbabwe to safeguard our game.
The just-ended 2011 season was the most difficult one to us as the PSL relegated clubs. We are happy though to say that all clubs managed to fulfill all their fixtures despite the extremely difficult conditions that we were playing under. The season was the most criminal of all. There was a lot of match-fixing and in the process serious violations of the rules of the game. Most of our matches were played to completely or partially pre-determined results and all the influence was coming from the referees and corrupt match officials. The integrity of the game today remains an ongoing concern to all in football.
The Zifa chairman's directive that the Mbada semi final games and the final be handled by foreign referees was a clear vote of no confidence in our local referees. Everyone involved in football today including the fans said thumbs up to the noble idea. To us the idea made sense and those who watched the semi final games will agree with us that there was fair play. If we had these foreign referees coming to take charge of local games every week, we definitely would be having a different scenario today.
Yes the loser is always at fault but we must point it out that if the Zifa board does not have confidence with the local referees then how do they trust the same referees to handle the league games. It follows to say that our small little teams without deep pockets were obviously affected badly. We lost dismally. We failed on most of the games to pay up. The sad part is that besides having to pay up for extra protection from the referees we also were supposed to pay the normal match fees to the same panel of officials. It became very difficult to keep up paying and for us who clearly failed, we lost a lot of games and in the end we found ourselves relegated.
Petition
We, the undersigned, strongly oppose that any team in the just- ended PSL League be relegated to Division One. The playing field was not fair. The whole referees' committee, the referees' conducts, the referees' selection and their monitoring system needs urgent overhaul. The system is too susceptible to influence, too corrupt, too fundamentally lacking in transparency. Thank you."
Source - chronicle
