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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
THE Premier Soccer League (PSL) has scoffed at rumours circulating on the social media insinuating that the topflight will expand the league to 20 teams by relegating two sides and promoting four teams.

The message circulating on social media claims that PSL chairman Farai Jere was quoted in one of the local radio stations saying axing two teams this season and promoting four will create a competitive league, whose season will run from August to May.

Kudzai Bare, the PSL spokesperson, distanced the topflight league from the message as fake.

The message suggests that the “desired” move to relegate only two teams was meant to save ailing Harare giants Dynamos, who are in relegation zone.

“We saw the post as well, but as a league we can confirm that four teams will be relegated at the end of the season and four teams will be coming in from the four Zifa First Division leagues. What we also want to highlight is that when communicating issues of relegation, such communication is done at the beginning of the season and rules and regulations of the competition can’t be changed during the season,” said Bare.

On PSL’s desire to conform to the Caf decision to align their calendar with other modern African leagues that also move in line with other Fifa competitions, Bare said they were awaiting Zifa’s guidance.

The PSL wrote to Zifa seeking permission to have the local topflight season start in August and end in May with effect from 2019.

“We wrote to Zifa and are waiting for their green light. We stand guided by Zifa’s decision because changing the season doesn’t only affect the PSL, but even lower leagues which are a feeder to the PSL are affected.

“We also asked clubs to submit written reports on the state of preparedness in terms of infrastructure, human resources, rules and regulations; i.e matters of force majeure and any other challenges that may need to be addressed in line with the proposed change of calendar,” said Bare.

Zimbabwe tried to adopt the August-May football season in the 1999-2000 season, but it was a total failure as rains washed out a number of matches.

Local stadia will have to work on their drainage and infrastructure to host games during the rainy season.

At the moment, the few stadia which have a decent drainage include Barbourfields Stadium, the National Sports Stadium and Baobab Stadium.

Not all the venues have terraced stands which exposes spectators to the elements when it starts to rain.

Another challenge is finding a competition to keep local teams busy while they prepare to start the 2019 season in August. — @ZililoR