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Kennedy Ndebele

Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Premier Soccer League board of governors will meet in Harare today to deliberate on the contentious relegation and promotion issue as well as preparations for the 2017 season.

The relegation and promotion impasse with Zifa has dragged on since November 2016, leaving the four clubs that won their respective regional Division One leagues last year in limbo.

“The meeting will also look at the league’s preparations for the coming season; that is all I can say about tomorrow’s meeting,” said PSL chief executive officer Kennedy Ndebele yesterday.

A Zifa extraordinary general meeting early this month resolved that the PSL should promote the four regional Division One champions and demote two sides.

The PSL has stuck to the original resolution of chopping two and accommodating two from Division One, which would be determined by play-offs.

The standoff saw PSL clubs approaching the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for recourse.

However, Zifa indicated that CAS had no jurisdiction over the impasse, arguing that the PSL had not exhausted the local dispute resolution systems in terms of Article 59, part One of the Zifa constitution which reads: “Zifa shall create an arbitration tribunal, which shall deal with all internal disputes between Zifa, its members, players, officials and match and players’ agents that do not fall under the jurisdiction of its judicial bodies. The executive committee shall draw up special regulations regarding the composition, jurisdiction and procedural rules of this arbitration tribunal.”

Zifa appointed Advocate Isaiah Mureriwa as its independent arbitrator.

The decision to approach the final court of appeal in sports reportedly caused divisions within the PSL, as some clubs were said to be against the move, saying there was need to exhaust local dispute resolution systems.

“Those systems could not be activated because there was never a dispute as the governors that attended the October 29, 2016, congress participated in the voting process and we lost,” said one PSL governor.

Chairman of the PSL emergency committee Kenny Mubaiwa, who will chair today’s meeting in the absence of a substantive chairman following the suspension of Peter Dube, said the January 7 resolution still stands.

“No one objected, meaning the resolution still stands. We will, however, hear inputs from members during the Friday meeting,” said Mubaiwa.