The Premier Soccer League has accused ZIFA of attempting to trying to make it irrelevant and dysfunctional and rejected the associations recent actions.
All 16 Premier Soccer league clubs met in Harare today to discuss recent ZIFA actions that included suspending the PSL Chairman Peter Dube for allegedly interfering in the on-going PSL relegation and promotion dispute.
In addition the PSL has opted to approach the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) seeking to bar ZIFA from interfering from running the Premier Soccer League.
The PSL has stated that Dube’s suspension was unjustified as he was communicating the collective view of the clubs on the relegation and promotion issue
A statement from the PSL governors said they collectively believed that ZIFA has the following agendas
- i) the apparent strategy to have the PSL Clubs fall directly under ZIFA, and
- ii) the wish to have the PSL’s competitions run under the direct supervision and command of ZIFA with PSL Clubs reporting directly to ZIFA as an asset of ZIFA, as a way of rendering the PSL irrelevant, and
The PSL’s also stated the believed they very existence is under threat and had an obligation to preserve the same for the sake of our common good.
An emergency committee of the PSL has been with Dynamos president Kenny Mubaiwa elected chairman of the meeting/congress.
The Emergency Committee of the PSL will be mandated to superintend over the affairs of the PSL.
The PSL will has decided to take ZIFA to the Court of Arbitration of Sport for interim measures of protection which shall include but not limited to the following:
4.2.1 an order barring ZIFA from interfering with the day to day running of the PSL, and
4.2.2 an order barring the purported suspension of, and commencement of any proceedings whatsoever against the Governors attending this meeting and/or their respective clubs and/or the PSL on the basis that:
4.2.2.1 they have associated with an organization, being the PSL, considered to have no legal standing in the ZIFA Statutes, or
4.2.2.2 they have not made decisions incidental to their membership of ZIFA “independently”, or
4.2.2.3 they have pursued the arbitration route with CAS, or
4.2.2.4 they have declined to be bound by the unlawful and hence immediately null and void, resolution of the ZIFA Congress of the 29th October 2016
4.2.3 barring the forcible imposition of members on the PSL.
4.2.4 allowing, for the avoidance of doubt, the PSL to continue to manage its competitions as in the past.
4.2.5 barring the interference with the PSL’s resolution that it will not relegate any member Club at the end of the 2016 season pending the disposition of the substantive dispute by CAS, and
generally all such interim relief as in Counsel’s view, may be necessary or incidental to the effective implementation of the foregoing.
The PSL and its constituent members said they remain committed to an amicable resolution of the dispute, provided such amicable resolution is predicated on the following principles: –
(i) Respect of the Statutes and a return to it as the supreme law of ZIFA, and
(ii) Reinstatement of the playoffs resolution, and
(iii) The funding and administration of the playoffs by the PSL on behalf of Congress on terms agreed to by the PSL, the Regions and the ZIFA Secretariat.