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Musa Mandaza

Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE Saints have three days to seal a deal with Quelaton and register their players with the Zifa Southern Region Division One league, whose deadline is Saturday.

The former topflight league champions are interested in the Quelaton franchise, previously held by Nust.

Zifa Southern Region chairman Musa Mandaza said the deadline for player registration is this Saturday and late registrations would not be entertained.

He said they were still waiting for Nust to formalise the return of Quelaton’s franchise.

“I must be honest with you, Nust is the team we have in our books and they don’t owe the league anything in terms of outstanding monies. We have only been reading in the press that they’ve surrendered their franchise to Quelaton, but there is nothing official from Nust,” said Mandaza.

“The procedure requires that they notify us in writing, but if they don’t do so and deadline day passes, the team with the Nust franchise will be left out. This also applies to other clubs that fail to meet the deadline,” Mandaza said.

Nust notified Quelaton of their decision to return the franchise on March 7, and Quelaton director Tawanda Ruzive has been courting Zimbabwe Saints to take over the Division One slot.

Ruzive yesterday said he was hoping to seal the deal before the end of the week.

“I’m running around working on a deal which I hope to conclude before the end of the week. I have a letter that Nust wrote to me saying they can’t continue with the project and because they had not paid for the franchise, they’ve returned it to Quelaton, which is in the process of passing it on,” said Ruzive.

Mandaza insisted that all the teams have to submit their player registration forms to the Zifa Southern Region office by Saturday.

Registration fees have been set at $20 per player, down from last season’s $60. Each club will be allowed to register 30 players.

Mandaza said they expect teams to have paid their affiliation fees in full by April 9, the day their season kicks off.

Affiliation fees are pegged at $2,500 for old teams while the five new clubs, which include Victoria Falls United, ZRP Hwange, ZRP Bulawayo, Talen Vision and Highlanders Academy, will fork out $3,000 each.