By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) chairman Irvin Khoza says they are treating the issue around Kaizer Chiefs’ postponed games with the utmost urgency and are hopeful that there can be a ruling made at an executive committee meeting on Tuesday.
Chiefs opted out of their recent DStv Premiership fixtures against Cape Town City and Lamontville Golden Arrows,citing a Covid-19 outbreak at the club. They have requested the game be postponed to a later date.
But the PSL ruled in similar circumstances against GladAfrica Championship side Cape United in January, awarding the points from their fixture to Cape Town Spurs, which ultimately saw the latter avoid relegation at the end of the campaign.
“It is not an easy matter, it is one that was dealt with by the football department and was escalated to the executive committee,” Khoza said on Monday.
“It requires a lot of attention to detail to make sure the adjudication on this matter is thorough. We are a rules-based organisation.
“Usually, everything is easy, you reference the [National Soccer League] handbook for answers. But there are situations that occur in normal life that requires us to apply our mind.
“At this point in time, I can say we have convened a fifth meeting [of the executive committee] tomorrow. We have been referring the matter back to the office to deal with the issues that we have raised, and we have been told that we will get the final bit of information we require, if it is possible, today and the meeting is convened for 11h00 tomorrow.
“Whether it will be the final date we adjudicate, I don’t know, we will have to see the facts in front of us. It is urgent, it is important, it is creating uncertainty in our market. But everything we do is in the interest of all the teams of the PSL.
“But we also take into account the issue of sporting integrity and reputational management, the issues of stakeholders … there are so many things that we have to evaluate in this matter.
“But the most important is our clubs come first, we apply our minds to all the clubs equally and it is important that we cannot keep these clubs waiting. I hope tomorrow we will advance the matter faster.”
Khoza has also revealed that the League will host a competition that will involve supporters selecting their teams’ players.
The DStv Compact Cup will see the 16 Premiership teams grouped into four streams and the competition will be played between 22 January and 29 January.
“Each team will be asked to name their available players and will be set out in public for selection. We will have four teams chosen by supporters,” said Khoza.
“They (the supporters) will sit and think which combinations are best. Supporters will choose – defence, middle and up front players.”
The teams are grouped as follows:
Coastal 1 – Golden Arrows AmaZulu, Golden Arrows and Maritzburg United
Coastal 2 – Chippa United, Cape Town City, Stellenbosch and Baroka
Inland 1 – Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates, Swallows and TS Galaxy
Inland 2 – Mamelodi Sundowns, SuperSport United, Sekhukhune and Marumo Gallants.