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THE domestic Premier Soccer League will this afternoon stage the final of its flagship knockout football tournament, the Chibuku Super Cup, at Baobab Stadium in Mhodoro with Ngezi Platinum Stars hosting FC Platinum in a football battle that features clubs from the country’s two biggest platinum mines.

Ngezi Platinum Stars, playing in their maiden season in the top-flight league, have defied the odds, including beating heavyweights Highlanders in the semi-finals in Bulawayo, to reach the final where they now stand within 90 minutes of winning a ticket to represent the country in the CAF Confederation Cup next year.

FC Platinum, for years the richest football club in the country before Ngezi Platinum Stars’ arrival in the top-flight league, will be playing in their second Chibuku Super Cup final, having won the tourney when it was revived two years ago by beating Harare City in dramatic fashion at Mandava Stadium.

The Zvishavane miners, who were in the race for the Castle Lager Premiership title until the penultimate game of the season last year, are also firmly in the picture in the quest for glory in the championship this year, with only two points separating them from leaders CAPS United with two games to play, and could celebrate a league and cup double.

In the last five years, FC Platinum have been part of the leaders in the race for the league championship until the final two games of the season – three times – and that proves beyond any doubt their pedigree and how they have risen to become one of the country’s top football clubs.

The leaders of Ngezi Platinum, who like FC Platinum, have built their own beautiful stadium in a massive investment in football, believe their club, with time, will also rise to become very competitive on the domestic scene and its appearance in the final of the Chibuku Super Cup is a huge statement of its potential.

The success of the two clubs from the platinum miners shows, once again, that in this game there is no substitute for investment and we are happy that there will be a dividend, either way, to those in leadership positions at the two mines who have chosen to invest in a national game which continues to cry out for such partnership.

While the game in Mhondoro this afternoon provides an advertisement of what is good and beautiful in our domestic football, the questionable decision by the ZIFA councillors last Saturday for the Premiership to relegate four clubs instead of two as earlier agreed, provides a reminder that dark forces continue to stalk our national game.

It’s ridiculous, if not insane, for people whom we entrust to safeguard the interests of football to come up with such a shocking resolution, especially when the Premier Soccer League only has two league matches to be played before the curtain comes down on the season.

We can’t understand how people who claim to be our football leaders can be so foolish to change the rules at the very last minute, when dealing with such a sensitive issue.

It’s unfair on the clubs in the PSL, which had organised their campaign on the basis that only two teams will be relegated all season to be told now that four teams have to go down and those who felt that they were safe suddenly find themselves being sucked into this mess which is, at best, a shame, and at worst, a fraudulent act

This is simply unacceptable because clubs pour in massive resources into their campaign, all year, with their coaches plotting ways of how they can manage to survive the chop because, for teams like Tsholotsho and Mutare City, just escaping relegation is a victory in itself the same way that for clubs like Dynamos, Highlanders and CAPS United, winning the championship represents success.

Now, how do you tell these small boys, with just two games to go before the end of the season, that four teams, instead of the two agreed when the ZIFA Council met last year, will go down?

Among those teams which suddenly find themselves being sucked in the relegation puzzle are Triangle and How Mine, two clubs that are backed by big corporates, and aren’t our football leaders who made this horrible decision pushing the sponsors who have poured a fortune into these clubs, money which our top-flight league badly needs, out of the game with their shocking move?

Those who are pushing for this move should be stopped because they are simply anti-football and we are happy that the Sports Commission have intervened very early to find a resolution to this case because this is not any different from fixing the relegation puzzle and, if these dark forces succeed, what will stop them next year from coming up with a resolution that half the teams in the PSL should be demoted, just two games before the end of the season?

Our football has been getting a lot of support from big corporates like Ngezi Platinum, Metallon Gold and Mimosa Mines and we just can’t let the stupidity of a few people to mess up things for us.