EDITORIAL COMMENT – PSL: Has our game ceased to be fair, beautiful?

REFEREE BATTLE OF ZIMTHE report we carried in this newspaper yesterday, which laid bare the chaos that is rocking our domestic Premiership amid complaints by clubs that the appointment of referees is not only a shambles, but could be in violation of the rules governing our national game, made very sad reading.

It’s a shame that our Premiership, the top-flight league in the country, is being reduced, to quote Chicken Inn secretary-general Tavengwa Hara, into a social league with the appointment of referees, itself a key area in football, being done in violation of the ZIFA Constitution.

Hara should know.

After all he is not only a leading lawyer, but he is one of the legal brains who crafted the ZIFA Constitution and when he says it is being violated left, right and centre through the current system of appointing referees, those who are running our football should listen.

Referees are key to the game of football, they are the ultimate authorities in charge, who signal when it should start and when it should end and who ensure everything is being done according to the laws that govern the game.

They are supposed to be impartial, the frontline agents of Fair Play, itself a virtue on which this game’s integrity has been built and is safeguarded, and when their appointment is not seen to be done above board, as is the case in our Premiership, then we are certainly not moving in the right direction.

The football leaders who allow this nonsense to continue are certainly not executing the responsibilities that is expected of them and are making a mockery of everything beautiful that this game should stand for.

We cannot understand how, in this age and era, we can have a key area like the appointment of referees being done in a manner that violates the ZIFA Constitution and, worse still, this cancer has been allowed to devour our game for the past two months.

Given that the ZIFA Constitution clearly stipulates that referees shall only be appointed by a proper committee, under an association which is manned by competent personnel who have vast knowledge in this game, why are we allowing the Premier Soccer League secretariat to make such appointments when they are not empowered by the rules and regulations governing our football to do so?

Admittedly, the challenges sparked by the creation of the National Football Association of Zimbabwe, which appears to have collapsed for now, created problems in the administration of football in this country.

But even before the attempts to create NAFAZ, we had a proper ZIFA Referees’ Committee, which was operational, and which appointed the right officials to handle matches in this country, including in the Premiership.

What happened to that committee and why is it that, suddenly, we find ourselves in a situation where the PSL secretariat appears to have usurped the powers of that committee, dressing themselves in borrowed robes to give themselves the powers to appoint referees for the domestic top-flight league?

If the PSL are appointing match officials for their league, then who is appointing the match officials who are handling the Division One matches, the Division Two matches and other competitive matches in this country?

Hara warned this week that there was a danger to clubs questioning the outcomes of matches which were handled by referees not appointed by the ZIFA Referees’ Committee and we can only agree with him because what is happening right now is a farce and should not be allowed to continue.

The ZIFA leadership have to take charge quickly and appoint the proper a Referees’ Committee so that appointments of match officials are not done in a haphazard manner which has the potential of turning our Premier League and Division One leagues into social leagues, and we challenge the association leader Philip Chiyangwa to give this area the urgent attention it deserves.

Surely, how is it possible, if things are being done above board, that a club like CAPS United can play three straight league matches in Bulawayo this season with all the games being handled by the same referee?

Why should that referee, in this case Thabani Bamala, be married to those Bulawayo clubs every time that they host CAPS United, as has been the case this season, and doesn’t this send a signal that something is wrong somewhere?

Chicken Inn are crying foul, the other day Chapungu United were also crying foul and it appears most of the teams in the top-flight league have lost confidence in the referees and it starts from such incidences where a team like CAPS United finds all its games in Bulawayo being handled by the same referee.

Our football leaders need to restore that bond of trust between the players and our referees and it starts with the appointment of match officials in a transparent manner so that Fair Play is not only done, but is also seen to be done.

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