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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
RESOLVING the relegation and promotion impasse will be costly, with reports that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has asked Zifa and the Premier Soccer League (PSL) to each pay 17 000 Swiss Francs (about $16 612) for the hearing to start.

Sources within Zifa and the PSL confirmed that CAS recently wrote the two parties indicating that they had to pay the amount by next week.

Sources also said Zifa, whose lawyer Itai Ndudzo is on record dismissing CAS as having no jurisdiction on the dispute, has been quietly communicating with the supreme court of sport.

“Both parties have to pay 17 000 Swiss Franc so that the matter is heard. This money has to be paid to CAS by next week,” said the source.

Both Zifa and PSL have to shoulder arbitration costs, and the two parties will have to pay in advance. This means $34 000 will be lost to the bickering started by Zifa councillors on October 29.

The national association, whose councillors ambushed the PSL by making a shock resolution to relegate four teams and promote four from the Zifa regional leagues, has put football development in a quandary, with both Zifa and PSL set to lose more money to legal costs.

The PSL appointed UK-based legal practitioner Pat Kachidza to represent them so they could cut on airfares.

A 2015 Zifa congress resolved to drop two teams from the topflight and stage promotional play-offs involving winners of Zifa’s four regional leagues to determine the two teams to take up the PSL slots for the 2017 season.

Rescinding the 2015 resolution to relegate two teams is the bone of contention between Zifa and the PSL.

The proposed Zifa extraordinary general meeting called for this Saturday in Harare to resolve the standoff is unlikely to come out with a solution, with reports saying both parties are sticking to their positions.

Our sister paper Sunday News reported that the four Zifa regions are set to rescind their support of the earlier decision to have four teams relegated with the same number being promoted, and instead back the proposal made by the Zifa executive committee to promote four teams and demote two.

The PSL, however, is intent on seeing through the mediation process they initiated when they approached CAS and feels that is the only way for the issue to be resolved.

@ZililoR